Oh that one was a killer. Looked dead set that we'd concede but Brough gave us a lifeline by trying, unnecessarily IMO, to miss too many teammates out with a very long cut out pass to Ormsby.....all Watkins had to do was catch the thing and more than likely no one is catching him, at worst we'd be 70/80m down field against a scattered and retreating defence.

When you contribute as little as our props have this season no chance of getting injured

He was injured, hadn't trained all week. I am not trying to defend him, but the coach puts him in Injured, not himself. Someone not fit simply can't put in the same as a fully fit player. He also wasn't alone in that regard.

Again Baldwinson talked about, when will people understand he is a prop, a prop. Galloway and Garbutt have been two of our best players for last two weeks. To play Baldwinson it will have to be at the expense of Singleton or Mullalley. I don't see those names mentioned when talking about Baldwinson playing, if I did I could understand.

I also don't understand these comments on youngsters learning. I looked at that side last night, and I honestly can't see more than four of those playing in the next four years. Out of interest who are been classed as youngsters? Sure the learning is brilliant for Lilley, who is a massive positive for us, and really does like someone with a bright future. Smith coming on, we know he has a great future, all it takes is the right development, and any coach would love to have him. Handley learning well, or at least before last night, someone just needs to work on his catching, but then again still an improvement on Hall in that regards.

Having thought we would get hammered before the game with that side, I am somewhat gutted we lost. I don't know how we lost it. Huddersfield are a very poor side, and it was there for Leeds to take. Certain players are working incredibly hard. Certain players are working incredibly hard but are really dumb. Certain players are simply not performing. But out of all that I just hold on to the fact that Lilley does look the bees knees.

Meters made
Hudds - 1268
Leeds - 1293

So we were fine there

But tackles made
Hudds - 305
Leeds - 367

Having to make 62 more tackles, effectively 10 extra sets took its toil in the last quarter. That came from penalties, knock ons and dropped kicks gifting Hudds too much possession especially in good position near our line which we scrambled really well to protect. Some try line stops last night were great.....certainly not the defensive effort of a team that has no faith in the coach or a lost dressing room.

Quite right Printer. Gifted possession cost us the game with Sutcliffe and Watkins leading culprits.

Spot on. Of our 4 props, like you said Galloway and Garbutt are doing well (the latter is averaging 130m a game). Mullally is doing ok, room to improve but coming on ok. Singleton really out of the 4 hasn't done too well but with some fans academy guys get more slack to underperform than a signing such as Galloway.

Its a strange one with Singleton.Got dropped early in the year, comes back and gets little minutes.He certainly looks like one lacking confidence right now and its understandable.He will be back.As mentioned i am quite happy last few games with Garbutt, Galloway and Mullally they have made a decent impact.

None of the middle unit at Leeds (two props and the LF) can do the long minutes Peacock used to do. So you need six middles in your 17 (three to start, three on the bench)

With Cuthbertson and Delaney missing, that leaves you with Garbutt, Galloway, Singleton, Mullally, JJB and one other. No reason that other couldn't be Baldwinson.

Problem with that, is it means you either trust your edge second-rowers to do 80 minutes, or you have an edge player as your fourth bench option. When Moon comes back, that's where Keinhorst fits into the 17 for me. Can cover injuries in the backs, as well as giving either Ferres or Ablett a rest if needed.

JJB does long minutes/full games. Given that one of our starting 2nd rowers was Achurch and apparently was playing injured and Ferres was returning after several weeks out then I think Walters and Smith on the bench instead of Baldwinson was the right call. Like I said before when looking at the team sheet I could see Smith being the 2nd rower put to emergency centre if we'd have had an injury there.

Gotcha when Cuthbertson is fit we will play 5 props so there is no reason Baldwinson could not play. Singleton has coped for plenty on here - he has been poor all season and Mullally is hardly putting in storming performances. Plenty of justifiable scope to give Baldwinson a run out - as I have said before is not as we are even winning these games.

If fit we'd have 4 props

Prop - Galloway
Prop - Cuthbertson
Loose - JJB

Sub - Garbutt
Sub - Singleton/Mullally
Sub - HB/Hooker
Sub - 2nd rower

Most fair minded people will agree that three very high bombs that Golding dropped were far from easy in fact they were very difficult with great credit to Brough and the swirling stadium currents. But remember he is a young fullback finding his way in what was a very difficult situation and Mac went out of his way to compliment Golding at half time as he also did some good work and one particular difficult take. You obviously have forgotten that Hardaker has dropped a few simpler ones himself this season so critics of Golding should remember this before taking to the keyboard..

Now I would suggest your love of Zak is clouding your judgement if you are suggesting he has been one of our best players this season. Fullbacks usually are big metre makers (as are wingers) because of easy metres in kick returns. The way to best judge this aspect of performance is the with the average metres per carry. Zak has always been in our top 5 and usually around 3rd place for metres per carry. This season he is averaging 5.83m per carry and is in 25th place for Leeds with only McGuire and Baldwinson beneath him! This I think highlights my point about his poor form this year as this is his main strength.

His injury last week was unfortunate but was not the result of a killer pass and had he been in better form he would not have turned his head away from the oncoming traffic and would have sought to drive forward and go to ground.

I think that young players have to be allowed to make some errors as they learn their trade and so I prefer to dwell on the many good things he did in the game including 17 tackles with two of them try saving ones.

Starting could be:
Prop - Galloway
Prop - Garbutt
Loose Cuthbertson/Singleton

Subs
Cuthbertson/Singleton
Mullally

If Cuthbertson is fit next week I can't see him dropping any of the props and going with no interchange hooker - time will tell

I agree I think Golding deserve some slack - he looks a very good player and he can only learn from this. How often will he come up against a kicker as good as Brough?

Let's face it Hardaker is looking for anyone else to catch the high ball but him

I would give Baldwinson a run in place of Singleton who is not doing much these days. Not sure of his minutes but last night only made 4 carries and 18 tackles perhaps he is carrying an injury too.

Where you playing JJB? Too slow/not agile enough in defence now for 2nd row, he hasn't played there in a while now.

I don't know I think he's just been lacklustre recently. He has recently become a dad so maybe being a new parent is having an effect on him.

Whatever the reason, if he (or any other prop) is not playing to his full potential then Baldwinson should be given a chance - soon - or he will be following the likes of D.Smith and Mulhern out of the club.

(How long is Galloway's contract for? Is it worth losing Baldwinson for the likes of Galloway?)

Yes and no. Of course you want Baldwinson to play but do you want him starting doing 30+ tackles every week like Galloway is doing?

The same arguments were made in 2012 for Singleton and Kirke/Bailey blocking him. Said then and say often, people need more patience.

Nobody said anything about him starting - IMO Singleton wasted 2/3 years - look at him now he is no great shakes for all that gentle mentoring?

It was asked if we should risk losing Baldwinson for Galloway.

Singleton's struggled this year but so have players who've been here almost 10 years, a player whose current MOS, players with NRL experience. He had a good year last year so can we say if he'd have played more in say 2012/2013 he'd be playing better now or wouldn't have suffered more injuries being thrown in earlier?

One of the worst cases was where Burrow gave a forward pass from DH to JJB well inside our half under no more than the usual DH pressure.
But in his defence Burrow otherwise had his usual busy game.
God knows where we'd be if he was to get injured.

You think it could be worse?

It could be. Whilst we didn't pick up the points in the last 2 games, if we performed in those games like we did against HKR and Wakey then we really are bad.

Not saying the performances have been great or good enough BUT they have improved over the last 3 games especially attitude wise. The annoying thing is its came in time for two away games that over the years have historically always been tough to get much from. If we played like we did last night (or like against Hull & Saints) in the games vs HKR, Wakey, Salford and Cas we'd probably be 8 points better off which like I said is the annoying part.

But that isn't purely down to Burrow. Lilley has had a massive impact also. I would worry more at the moment at been without him, if I was measuring performance wise.

But in terms of points and position wise, it can't get worse whether Burrow is injured or not. Not that I would want to be without him at the moment like.