You can't coach dropsy out of a player. It's a psycho-physical response which is rooted deep within the subconcious. Totally different to ... say ... poor tackling technique, which is a concious decision - albeit a bad one. I'm not saying you can't do things to improve the situation (correcting footwork, positioning, jumping etc.), but if you've got bad hands age 17 you will almost certainly have bad hands age 27.

Signing Ainscough in place of Meli would be a step sideways, perhaps backwards. Certainly opposition coaches would target him without mercy.

Ainscough's major issues seem to be positional. Ade used to be very prone to errors but some good coaching helped him out alot - Ade's biggest problem is he just doesnt seem to have any pace any more ..

Get Meli in the back row to cover the lose of Gilly, Soliola to centre and then sign a flyer to put on the wing.

Doesn't have pace anymore? He never had any pace, and now he has even less!

As a Leeds supporter I certainly think Meli certainly has an upside moving into the back row and although the errors he made turned to be critical ones there certainly is a potentially good 2nd rower. You cant fault the lads effort and he's big enough to move into the pack.

If he didn't make stupid mistakes from kicks he would probably be the best winger in the league. Going forward, you can't fault him, which is why i think he would be very good in the second row.

I'd move Pryce to 13 and Meli into the second row. Potter won't though.

Wellens
Lomax
Gidley
Soliola
Wheeler
Pryce
Eastmond

Probable backline for next season.

Although I can imagine him being a good 2nd row, I can also imagine him completely fu*king up the defensive line.

Let's try it. Stick him and Soliola in the 2nd row, one on each side and lets see if we can start punching some holes. Wilkin and Flannery can provide the work rate in defence and Puletua can be an impact prop.

He doesn't have the pace for that accolade.

I'd just be happy to bin Meli. He cost us the Grand Final this time out, him and his stupid schoolboy errors. I'm weary of him doing this and I don't think he should be excused or defended any longer. I feel worse about him this time than I would have done had he not played so brilliantly for so many weeks because had he not done that then his ridiculous, costly brainfarts would not have come as such a crushing disappointment on Saturday night. I would have anticipated them instead.

i stand by what i said after last years GF. I will pay for melis air fare home (unless somebody fancies chipping in). as for gardner, he looked like he was towing a caravan when he went "flying" down the wing and got dumped into touch. get rid of both along with hargreaves and flannery. if we are gonna have players take up places on the overseas quota then imo they should be the best players in the team and he is far from it.

I don't think meli is fit enough to play 2nd row.

His defence would also worry me when he's tired.

I think our backline will be

wello
Gardner
gidley
wheeler
meli
pryce
eastmond


I'd go with that but would play lomax on wing and drop Gardner.

Perhaps he has some kind of long-standing injury. I don't know. Almost all wingers drop down a couple of gears in their late twenties and early thirties - but Gardner is a bit young for that.

And I can only repeat the point: Criticising Meli for bad hands is like criticising a bird for flying. It's what they do. The guy has ALWAYS had dodgy hands. He ALWAYS will. I'm sure he tries desperately to correct this fault but it's completely beyond his or anyone else's power.

If there is to be any real criticism it should be aimed at McManus. I can only assume the new stadium has drained our finances to the point where he could only spend at bargain bucket basement because no one in his right mind would have offered Meli the eye bogglingly long contract he did on the strength of performance. He gambled on turning around an NRL washout who had shown good form in the NRL prior to being figured out and obliterated. Unfortunately the odds were against him from the start.

Meli only made one error, the pass to Smith. The ball being knocked out late on wasn't his fault and could happen to anyone.

What?

What what?

The error for Smith's try in the first half was his only error wasn't it? The other time it was punched out of his hands.

So far as I'm aware, Meli made two howlers: the loose ball he decided to bat into their ingoal area, giving them their second try, and later when he dropped the bloody ball, which led ultimately to their third try. Nothing was punched out of his hands so far as I know but by the time of his second howler I was imagining what forms of torture I could use on him so I probably wasn't concentrating.

Judging from how the ball came out I would say the one for the third try was punched out one on one, which isn't really anything he can prevent.

Well, if that did happen - and I didn't see that at the time - then it should have been a knock on by Leeds shouldn't it? But besides that, he might have been guilty of a loose carry rather than someone punching the ball out of his hand. Nah, it just doesn't resonate with my memory of the occasion. He just lost it on impact.

Given his ability to make howlers at grand finals, I don't forgive Meli this time. He's done for me.

Ball was punched out backward by a Leeds player. Leeds are the masters of stripping the ball imo.

Exhibit A - 2007 grand final, loses ball in own 25 metre area. Leeds score with lautiti and take hold of the game.

Exhibit b - 2008 grand final, fumbles high ball which is swooped on by mcguire allowing leeds to establish a crucial 8 point match winning lead.

Exhibit c - 2009 grand final basically pats the ball to smith over the try line for him to touch down.

exhibit d- Loses ball in own 20 metres with 10 minutes to go. Leeds score game clinching try from resultant field position.





Pretty damning evidence.

Meli has played a key role in losing you all 3 grand finals.

Fair points. I dont think Meli will be on a cheap contract though so I do wonder why we didnt go looking for an alternative when we had the chance, when is his current contract up?

End of next season.

Maybe we did but no one was available?

It's ok saying we should sign 2 wingers, 2 props and a new half back but the quality in these positions just hasn't been available within budgets and quota limits.

In the prop department, the resigning of Fozzard points to this in a major way.

What people forget is that Saints were left in the lurch a bit by Darren Albert who decided at short notice that he was going back to Australia.

We were then left with having to make do and mend and got Meli.

I suspect we will keep Meli till end of next season then he will retire or go and play RU somewhere