Time to move handley on to pastures new. He has had his chances . Briscoe is completely out of form, although to be fair to him it's been sometime since he has had any decent ball. Feel sorry for moon and Watkins who both looked dangerous all the game.
Congratulations to cas they play smart rugby. When the occasion demands it ,they spin the ball wide as quick as possible.
I rate Shenton he is a wingers centre, he will release the ball when it's required, other than that he will take the ball forward himself.
Don't know what happened after half time ,all the good things we did in the first half we stopped doing. Our play the ball/ruck game was once again slow. If you look at robys performance for saints shows just how vital that area of the game is.

We stopped doing the tough stuff in the 2nd half that we'd done successfully in the 1st. We tried to take shortcuts with a few silly passes/offloads and not controlling the ruck either with good enough contact or not getting enough men into the tackle.
When we did that tough stuff in the 1st half we matched them and more at times.

With hindsight having both Handley and Burrow on the bench probably left us too light however I can see the thinking behind that decision.

Take out the awful kick that led to their length of the field try and it's a very close game.

There's things for us to fix but it's not the end of the world by any means.

Credit also must go to Cas both for a very good performance and the way they play the game. The try with Shenton's pass out the back was a joy to watch. I don't particularly mind us conceding tries like those.

I hadn't noticed that Webster had gone off, he would have made a difference in defence. I would say we were still in it when Moon scored as we were taking control but then we failed to maintain any pressure and Cas did an excellent job of making sure the game was played in our half during the last quarter. When we eventually got back down there Sutcliffe scored.

That was a fantastic bit of play from Shenton. That try shows just how well drilled Cas are, Shenton didn't even have to look to know that Eden was there because they've practiced that move repeatedly until it's second nature.

It was 28-6 when Moon scored for leeds with 13 minutes to go. Now I'm a pessimist at times but I think the game was done at that point, which is why Powell took Webster off.

We had Ben Roberts Oliver Holmes and Larne Patrick missing yesterday , whilst our injury list isn't like wigan's we haven't been totally immune of them, also Zak wasn't 100% either.

To be fair that's pretty much where a winger should be on virtually any move. But the impressive part is the ability to perform that pass so quickly and accurately. That takes hours and hours of passing and handling in training. Some players I'd put it down to "luck" that the pass came off, and while there's always a little bit of luck involved in anything like that, with it being Shenton I'm putting it down to his skill and ability (and Cas' ability to create the opportunity)

I think if we controlled that first 10 mins in the second half we are in with a good chance of winning that game. The boys will know that for next time.

What we did is....... Come up with a string of errors and a couple of cheap pens and invited Cas to win the game and they did. When we got down their end we scored.

Cas struggled with the pace of the game in the first 40. The players and their fans looked worried. Gales drop goal attemp before half time summed it up. I think we blew a good chance of beating them.

I think they will find the going tough especially in big games if they make a GF.

If they lose Gale their season is over.

Am I the only person who thought Shentons miracle ball was at least a meter forward.

Possibly

No, I did too, it was forward out of his hands.

I don't agree with people however, that we would have won that game. After the first 10 minutes of the match we completely controlled that first half, and were by a distance the better team. However, I think people are getting confused with that and thinking we would have won. We rarely looked like scoring in that dominant period. There were gaps created throughout that Cas defence, and yet we never looked like exploiting it, other than the Watkins try. We still persisted with the stupid short flat balls trying to barge through, when it was clear the ball out wide was what troubled Cas. We didn't have a player with the brains to do that right, despite what IMO was one of McGuires best games in a long time in that first half.

Despite the above in that same first half, Cas had a ball ripped out going over the line, they were held up twice over the line, and had a brilliant try (correctly) swiped off. That try was one Leeds used to do many times, and for a long time now, don't look capabale of trying.

Cas started the second half the exact same way they started the first half, only this time Leeds couldn't get a break to stop the momentum before it was too late. I don't think the try's that came later would have happend had Cas not already have won the match.

They were there for the taking, but with the same tactics and the same players, we could play them another 10 times over next 10 weeks, and we woudl probably lose the whole lot. Cas have our number, plain and simple, the Cas coach is constantly using the same tactic against us, and our coach is not rectifying the problem when we play them.

That whole weekend of games highlighted just how poor the teams in Super League are, and here we are in fourth, possibly in next couple of weeks out of six. That is potentially some embarrassment in this current league.

I think there is far too many players that seem to be immune from critisism in that team, and not sure where the praise comes from. Despite that though, and just to highlight how bad the game is, I look at that top four and given a choice of players, I would only swap 5 Cas players, 1 Salford player, and 2 Hull Players. I certainly wouldn't swap our position for Salford and Hull who I think are really poor sides.

If they had one penalty against each, how can that be called frequent? The errors on our right wing led to several scores.

Gotcha, who is the 1 Salford player ? Personally I reckon O'brien would add more at FB then Goulding, Greg Johnson would do a far better job on the wing then either the 2 you had there yesterday, Dobson and or Lui would be a better half then Moon (who could go back to centre)or McGuire , then Kopczak and Ben MM would easily get into your pack instead of say Delaney (when did he last have a good game) and Mullally (poor).

I thought we were held up 3 or 4 times over their line?

Gale was the main difference between the sides and not for the first time. Had been playing for Leeds we would have won IMO

You only had to look at our bench options to know we were going to lose that game. Like i said in a previous post, missing Galloway, Garbutt and Ablett was too much for us to cope with. Mullally tries his best but i'm sorry he's not good enough and then you have a winger (WTF) Burrow and crock Delaney it's nowhere near enough the required standard to match it for a full 80 against cass when they have the likes of Moors coming on.

I take encouragement because we did match them and looked pretty comfortable for most of the first 40 minutes. If we had a near full strength side in a big big match against anyone in this league never mind Cas, i would fancy our chances as it stands. Sadly our depth beyond the 17/18/19 best players is lacking badly.

I would have Murdock Massilla and nobody else. Lui and Dobson are poor excuses for players, I would rather go with what we have than them. No way would I have O'Brien over Goulding, and I am still not sure Goulding is our best option. Johnson, I think you must be saying tongue in cheek mate.

We've had our fair share I suppose. What I couldn't believe from Shenton was how convinced he was that he scored when Golding clearly held him up.

Yep I agree

Must be disheartening not being able to get over the top of Cas again.

Leeds huffed and puffed with a much stronger side and a bit of form behind them. Leeds wanted it badly yesterday after the early season humiliation but still came up way short against a Cas side not at their flamboyant razzle dazzle best.

Surprised its not been mentioned or was picked up by the commentary team how forward the pass out the back from Shenton was.

Having just watched several times I would say it is level. What is in Shenton's favour is he is still well in front of Eden when Eden catches the pass.

As a matter of interest,who would your 5 cas players be?
Roberts
Millington
Moors
Hardaker
Gale
Or none of the above?

I say this from seeing Cas plenty of times, and often down the jungle. I would take Hardaker, Millington, Gale, McMeeken, and Sene-Lafao. I am not a fan of Moors or Roberts, decent players, but I don't see the advantag in a swap there.

Wow, just wow.



Junior Moors is absolutely outstanding and walks into any super league side. I get Ben Roberts can be rocks and diamonds at times but Junior is different gravy. Think he won players player, fans player and coaches player of the year at Cas last year and has continued his form and some into this season.

I said he was a decent player, but I didn't see an advantage. And in my opinion he was nowhere near your player of the year, and over hyped. Just my opinion though, it wasn't a critisism.