Senior just had a bad game today and he will hit back. His ability to create good passes will be a joy to watch throughout the season hopefully. You only have to look at Cliff Lyons with the Legends of Origin match to see that true greats never really lose it.

senior is not, and never was, in lyons class.

Executing good passes has never been a consistent part of Senior's armoury either. He's average in that department at best, and when he's below average his pass often ends up on the deck or in Row Z.

Senior's main attributes throughout his career have been:

1. His injury-free record and consistent availability for selection.
2. His power in attack.
3. His pace in attack.

He's primarily a strong biff and barge merchant. He's not, and never has been a particularly skilful player in any department.

My God, I'm in shock. A complete post of Jeff's that I agreed with....

me too. see jeff, you can do it if you really try

I agree that for most of his career he was a biff and barge merchant and very good at it. However in the last few years I have seen Keith Senior develop a fantastic partnership with Ryan Hall. Unless I’m just imagining that Keith Senior was the last hands in the passages of play before Hall has gone in for a try, I think that Keith has actually got better since retiring from international rugby.

I do know that opta keep stats and will be finding the stats sometime through this week to back my point up. At the moment I’m on row Z and it’ll take a Keith Senior pass into it to wake me up

Over the years I have watched Senior I know he has been the heart of the best Leeds wing Partnership and whenever this has been in doubt he has switched wings to help cover the weakness! Great Pro and can I bid for his 400 shirt?

You have to hope he is not going play that much this season - his defense has always been suspect even in his prime today it would have been funny had it not been so bad.

What's the betting he gets another contract extension about June

Plus ca change?

I'm sure in that case you'll have no trouble pointing out all those breaks Bradford made down their right hand side against Senior's appalling defence?

They didn't need to break it, just put a kick there.

Riiight, so Senior is responsible for not noticing that Brent Webb had - yet again - gone AWOL for Whitehead's first two tries then?

Seriously?

If that's the point you're trying to make, you're just embarrassing yourself.

I'll give you Whitehead's third try, although there were three other Leeds players stood around the ball who were equally culpable for not taking the initiative and dealing with it.

I don't need just review the game and see how many tries Bradford scored when Senior was watching the player who scored run past him and at the point of scoring Senior was 10 metres down the pitch looking on?

Tries 1 and 2 - in fact all 3 of Whitehead's for a start - Senior is supposed to lead by example not abdicate his responsibilities.

I'll refrain from any over emotion comments, and just reverse the point back to you.

I notice you've avoided responding to the actual point raised though.

Are you seriously suggesting (much as Sal seems to be) that Senior was at fault for not preventing Whitehead's first two tries?

It is Senior's poor positional sense that causes problems. For one of the kicks on Sunday Senior had not slid out and left a gap which invited a kick through for Whitehead to run onto.

While for high bombs that come his way, his tactic is to run underneath the ball and leave catching it to someone else (on Sunday he left it to the smallest player on the pitch) Not only is this a cop out for someone who is physically suitable to collect bombs, but it leaves him isolated on the wrong side of the ball and unable to defend his line.

Those tries appeared mainly to come from Leeds being a man down and Webb pushing up into the line instead of condencing the defence and forcing Bradford to try and find an overlap. It was asking for the kick through into the deep in-goal areas and Bradford were good enough to execute those plays. Poor defensive alignment.

Senior did get ahead of the defence for one of them but I don't think it would have made a difference to the scoring opportunity had he held station.

I, too, hate to say it but I also agree with the above.

Re Kicks & positional play I'm not clever enough to know where he should stand nor how he should defend when we're down to 12 men BUT I have long been amazed how our tallest back is never tasked with being the one to jump for the ball when a kick goes up on his side.
It was laughable to see Senior stand & watch as Burrow leapt almost as high as Senior's shoulder for the last of Whitehead's tries.
I thought one thing that Potter did bring to the Bulls attack was the kick to the centre not to the wing, for all 3 tries from kicks.

Fair comment and why I don't blame Web on this one.

However Senior does regularly get himself on the wrong side of the defensive line and for high kicks appears to go to try and obstruct rather than go for the ball. I cannot last recall when he jumped off the ground to try and collect a kick.

Regarding the defensive alignment, is there an argument for a return of the sweeper? The odds now seem to favour the kicker who produces so many scores in the current game.

The problem yesterday was there being no full-back, never mind a sweeper, in the defensive allignment for those soft tries conceded entirely from within our red zone.

No real need for sweepers in the modern game is there where teams tend to concentrate on playing out their full compliment with scoots from dummy half and drives often just one off the ruck. The inventive play (often early in the tackle count) that required teams to employ a sweeper is no longer viewed as a high percentage play. Nice to see Iestyn Harris challenge the convention on re-starts, I hope there is more of this to come and I think there is. Only a matter of time IMO before Harris finds himself at a top club.

I agree Senior appears to have an aversion to catching kicks more usually opting to use his frame to shield a designated catcher. Problem yesterday for Whitehead's hat-trick score was that nobody took responsibility for it. It was a clever kick and a tactic teams have used successfully in the past aiming at Burrow and McGuire rather than Hall and whoever Leeds have on the opposite flank.

...and we need to be prepared for it happening every match. If Senior won't/can't jump (Delaney also proved himself an embarrasment at this last season) then all the more reason to move our no.3 and no.4 into the second row

I think the real issue is a clever bit of coaching by Potter (&/or the players concerned) making the kicks on 3rd/4th tackle when I guess our defence wasn't expecting the Bulls to kick.

When Keith's been on the wing and the bombs have been assigned as something he had to deal with I always felt he dealt with them well. Same with when we're taking a short dropout or high bomb. Keith is often the player challenging and his size and power causes major problems.

But when we're dealing with bombs, Keith clearly isn't given the job of taking them. He's obviously assigned to shielding the catching player so that they aren't overwhelmed with kick chasers.

Personally I'd have Keith and Ryan as the assigned bomb takers. Other players would have the duty of shielding them and covering in defence should the ball come loose.

tvoc - You mentioned shoulder surgery in a recent post regarding Keith. Has Keith had surgery again this pre-season? I know he had surgery last year and it was pretty much a failure.

This is what I recall reading in the YEP

Senior facing surgery
6th October 2010

[iVeteran centre Keith Senior is the latest Leeds Rhinos player facing off-season surgery. Senior was due to go under the knife today, for the second operation on his right shoulder in 12 months. The former Great Britain man could miss the early stages of pre-season training, but expects to be fit for the start of the 2011 engage Super League campaign. Said Senior: “I played all of 2009 with a bad shoulder and I had an operation at the end of the season. I did my re-hab, but by the time the season started again I had lost range in my shoulder and I was in more pain. I was in a worse state than before I had the op. I carried on playing all year and I only missed one game, through being rested. I was devastated when Bluey rested me, because I would have been the only one who played all year. I am going back in for another operation on Wednesday. The specialist is going to have another look and give it a clean out. It has had 500-odd games’ wear and tear, so naturally it’s not like it used to be. It is a case of giving it a good clean out, wait until I retire and then get a new shoulder!”[/i

Obviously that relates to a surgery scheduled at the end of last season (2010) so my terminology of pre-season (perhaps suggesting early 2011) rather than the more accurate post-season may have been mis-leading.



Possibly in the Round 26 Home fixture V Les Catalans after he'd been moved over to the right wing. He caught the ball in goal - threw it forward to Buderus for a quick re-start - took the ball as first man and shipped it to McGuire to run it in from eighty meters out. Not 100% sure if he jumped but he certainly took it on the full.

I remember it not qualifying for an Opta 'try assist' much to Lord Jose's understandable displeasure.