Just watch this game and Amor was very strong in the first half. In the second he was simply awesome and turned his blood to water. very strong drives and meteres made. Also he eas all over the pitch in defence. Absolutely different class and the man of the match by far. On this showing i am sure he will be in for a big season and would expect the sleeve to bring him home at the end of it. On this showing he is typical of what every pack needs 'a work horse' and a maker of hard yards. Also Wakefield were very impressive for the first game of the season, not many teams will enjoy a trip to the rapid solicitors this season like they have in the past. A good blend of youth and experience and two very competent half backs and a quality hooker in Aiton.

Widnes played OK in the first half but disaplin cost them in the second half. Average half backs to the team worked hard. Overall too slow and over the course of the season the better teams will blow them away. Wooden spoon I am affraid nailed on !

Regarding the i pitch their have been quite a few complaints by alot of the players on twitter richie mathers has uploaded some photos and called the pitch atrocious

I have not seen Mathers tweets, however if it is to do with players suffering burns, I would have thought the clubs would have provided the players with the right protective clothing, ie something on the line with clothing worn in the NFL.

If he is going on about the play of the pitch then it is the same for both sides.

Seems ever more puzzling to let Ali and Amor go to Wakefield, but yet keep Kirke and sign Griffin/Moore

griffin is a good signing as was proved on friday. very good display.
i would have kept amor over moore

ali should be regarded as a legend at leeds but he has played very little in the last two years. lets see how many games he plays for wakey this year

I think it will be burns. I noticed loads of players with bloodied elbows and knees Friday. I once played an American Football game on Boundray Park's artificial pitch in the late 1980s and it was like playing on concrete. I'm sure technology has moved on nowadays though.

Sky have invented an inaccurate version of the scoreboard. Not sure what the value is of a result prediction device that only makes a really accurate prediction at the final whistle?

And here's the evidence from Friday.

OUCH!!!

Who's that?

I saw Mathers' knees but they weren't half as bad as those.

I reckon more of that is the horrid yellow savlon spray than owt else

Wow...a previously undiscovered Jackson Pollock...must be worth a fortune that.

Isn't that picture of Matty Ashurst and from last nights game in the snow, not friday?

It is indeed and it's not unusual at this time of year.

I bumped into Kevin Sinfield (during a break in his training) in the Leeds club shop at the beginning of last season and commented on the ugly bruises and grazes that seemed to cover most of his legs. He said all Rhinos players were the same and just put it down to the state of the pitches.

Player.......Metres.....Carries....Tackles.....Offloads.....Marker Tackles.....Miss Tackles...Pens.....Yellow

Cross.........71...........14...........25................2...............4........................3...............2............1

Bailey.........62............11..........25................0...............2.........................0................0...........0

On the positive side Cross had the better stats with a higher work rate (with a very good first set) while he let himself down with 2 pens (out of 13 by Widnes) and talking back late in the game.

So on the posiitive contributions made Bloodbath 0 - 1 Juan

But taking into account the negatives I think a 1 - 1 tie is perhaps fair......... Perhaps "justifying" a Taxi for tvoc?

You did not name the source of your cut & paste did you? Yet you implied it was due to the i-pitch.

This same picture is on the Widnes site where it states that these are Matty Ashurst's knees after playing on grass on Friday night!
[urlhttp://viewtopic.php?f=35&t=518147&start=20[/url

Does anyone recognise these knees? Then perhaps we can have some informed debate.

Still struggling?
_____

I'm just relieved we have a penalty winner rather than a penalty machine and liability on the books. I think good discipline is so very important in the modern era and perfectly illustrated in the two games featuring these two players last weekend. Hull KR's and Widnes were poor in this regard and they both lost.

bloodbath 1 - 0 Juan

What was the score when Cross, in full realisation that his side were on their last warning, got himself binned? He was lucky he didn't turn his yellow into a red with his reaction.

Cross is a complete laibility.

Considering that one was on a losing team and the other a winning team, it is not unreasonable that cross had to do more work than Bailey, and his missed tackles and poor discipline could have been a contributing factor to the end result.

Cross averages less penalties per game than JJB who we both admire. I am not excusing has poor discipline but he had several other teammates with an equal or a worse record in this game. IMO it was the efforts of Cross in his first set that played a big part in keeping Widnes in the game. Wakefield looked the likely winners throughout as Widnes lacked any sort of control at half back. Cross going off effected the score but not the result.

He certainly sails close to the wind but then some of the greatest forwards in the history of the game were the same. In the days gone bye they always used to say you needed at least one enforcer capable of eating his children. But Cross is tough, fit and has a high work rate so I wouldn't write him off just yet.

In that post you have compared Cross to JJB and "some of the greatest forwards in the history of the game".

You rate Cross. I think he's a joke. I haven't the energy to debate the issue further.

Last year my friends and I labelled Cross a donk (big clumsy guy essentially). On Friday night I said to the GF he still looked a Donk, 5 mins later I got a text from a mate saying the same.

Last season he irritated me by giving away stupid penalties at key moments in the game. He doesn't seem to have ironed this out of his game. Steady player for someone like Widnes, but I don't see a place for him at a top club.

But he's no-where near being a decent player let alone one of the greatest in the game. So he doesn't have any wriggle room.

Don't write him off yet? His age, injury plagued, low game spanning career has already done that.

Even in his recent Super League career he has played only a low number of games and has appeared for 3 clubs. No-one wants to retain, the technically awful, Ben Cross.

The score remains the same:

BB 1
JC 0

(due to a huge own goal)

Quote ="Juan Cornetto" Cross averages less penalties per game than JJB who we both admire. '" Not in 2012 and more sin-binnings for Cross 2011/12. Quote ="Juan Cornetto" I am not excusing has poor discipline but he had several other teammates with an equal or a worse record in this game. '" Yes it's difficult to defend the seemingly indefensible but here you are trying to do so. Which other Widnes players caused their team to be numerically disadvantaged for a crucial ten minutes? How you can attempt to equate that to the potential concession of a penalty 90 metres from your tryline is seriously flawed. Denis Betts summed up the problem reasonably accurately: [i=#0000BF"It lost its way through ill-discipline, started to lose the ruck and got frustrated with the referee. That caused us more problems than it should have done and we should have been strong enough to get out of it."[/i I wonder which individual player that could be applied to? Only one SL player's actions required a spell in the sin-bin in week one. www.engagesuperleague.co.uk/stat ... eason=2012 What was that stand-alone player sin-binned for? The initial high tackle or the volley of abuse towards the referee that followed?

Quote ="Juan Cornetto" Cross averages less penalties per game than JJB who we both admire. '" Not in 2012 and more sin-binnings for Cross 2011/12. Quote ="Juan Cornetto" I am not excusing has poor discipline but he had several other teammates with an equal or a worse record in this game. '" Yes it's difficult to defend the seemingly indefensible but here you are trying to do so. Which other Widnes players caused their team to be numerically disadvantaged for a crucial ten minutes? How you can attempt to equate that to the potential concession of a penalty 90 metres from your tryline is seriously flawed. Denis Betts summed up the problem reasonably accurately: [i=#0000BF"It lost its way through ill-discipline, started to lose the ruck and got frustrated with the referee. That caused us more problems than it should have done and we should have been strong enough to get out of it."[/i I wonder which individual player that could be applied to? Only one SL player's actions required a spell in the sin-bin in week one. www.engagesuperleague.co.uk/stat ... eason=2012 What was that stand-alone player sin-binned for? The initial high tackle or the volley of abuse towards the referee that followed?

I thought it was for the tackle and the volley of abuse that follow could have easily turned the colour of the card red.

I heard rumours last year that Brian McDermott told him he couldn't risk playing him because he was unable to control himself. Each time I've seen him on Sky since for his two subsequent clubs that view has been reinforced.

Begs the question what qualities Cross was perceived to have to justify his signing in the first place......contrast with the apparent lack of faith in Amor (and Ambler)