Well, he is terrible. By contrast, I think Hicks did a pretty good job this afternoon.

Child was the wrong appointment for the play offs. Last week was his first game back after being stood down for 6 weeks following the officiating shambles in the Leeds/Wigan fixture at Headingly.

He simply isn't good enough for play off or semi final rugby. His appointment to the C Cup final was an utter disaster especially after his abysmal game in the Cup Semi. His appointment to last night game was even worse. He proved it by only refereeing one team.

Don't disagree. The much-maligned Hicks is a much better ref.

As long as we don't get Liam Moore I don't care who the ref is

Genuine question about the rules - is there still one for ungentlemanly conduct?

The reason is ask is Bentley. Now he didn't actually do anything wrong on Friday, but he was in everyone's ear, antagonising and, in some respects, masterfully playing opposition players. Surely the refs aren't that dumb (maybe they probably are) that they can't realise that he's not helping matters and making their jobs harder.

Bentley, like Connor, is a repeat offender. Time and time again however, it's the person who reacts who gets the penalty against them.

Being in someone's ear is part of the game. More fool the people that react.

Unless he is forcing them to react with cheap shots and facials etc then nothing wrong a few verbals for me.

Apart from the attempted punch on Micky Mac before the Pearce sin-binning.

Bentley dropped his elbow in to a players face on the floor (McMeekan was it?) and will be lucky to be playing Friday from the replay I saw. Leeds are probably owed one from the disciplinary though given the ridiculous Martin ban, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that comes this week.

Played to get under your skin





, we played you off the park

Well spotted , i guess you were there as no Cameras caught that one , so just maybe it did not happen

100% you did but it doesn’t take away from the fact that from the first tackle your guys were niggling away. No issues with that at all and we had no answer.

We’ll see how we get on Friday.

This Friday has nothing to do with your ridiculous statement

get back in your box

It’s ridiculous in your opinion, your opinion being that of a Leeds fan. Friday gone would suggest it isn’t that ridiculous after all.

As I say let’s see how we go this week. I doubt your tactics will change much but hopefully we don’t get dragged in to all the niggle.

I've sat down and watched Leeds properly twice since Smith came in (against Wigan & Cats) and its clear as day he's got them to push the niggle and aggression in the tackle as part of a strong defensive effort, and both times they've played some decent rugby on the back of it.
For the life of me I can't understand what is controversial or disrespectful about pointing that out?

Aye, me neither. I pointed out I do not have an issue with it and it’s all part of the game but it’s clear as day. Look at Cameron Smith last Friday, a guy who I always saw as a bit too nice if anything pre Rohan Smith and on Friday it was niggle after niggle, pushing and shoving at every play the ball and so on.

As a Leeds fan I see it a bit differently (to be expected). 3rd recent game against Catalans and Smith knew to play on their indiscipline and targeted the players most likely to react. He might try the same with yours though given you've looked pretty controlled this year I doubt he'll waste time on a tactic unlikely to work. What he may do is rattle any players unsettled by being roughed up a bit, or direct carries aplenty at players who get gassed easily and so on. Identify weakness and exploit it in other words. Of course Catalans were a fairly low bar; yourselves and the other surviving two have far fewer weaknesses. Gonna be an interesting contest.

I don't see how that is seeing it differently TBH, it was clearly a deliberate tactic to try to niggle and wind up Catalans players and it worked?
In that last game against us it was clear Harry Newman had been told to give Field some treatment whenever possible -
Quote - “In every game I pick a battle with someone who can make an influence and it’s been obvious all season that Jai Field has been incredible and in this game I put my hand up and I said I’d do a job on him and I thought I did that. We spoke before that if I could get into him and ruffle him then I might prevent him scoring the tries he does in attack.”
Again, whats the problem with pointing out what your deliberate and pre-planned tactic is? It's all part of the game and you play some decent rugby on the back of it. Its definitely something Wigan will have to deal with on Friday, whats the issue?

Again, its not a criticism, all teams do it to a certain degree, see Wigan's treatment of Welsby in the last Derby.

Sounds fair enough to me. I think there will be plenty of niggle both ways because it’s the nature of the beast come play off time. We were miles off in our attitude at your place recently but I’m sure both sides will be on for this. It’s going to be a great game I reckon. Leeds under Rohan Smith feel a bit like Saints right at the start of Holbrooks time, when they had a run and ended up unlucky in losing a semi at Cas via a Luke Gale drop goal. Whatever happens I think next season will be a very good one for Leeds.

That was payback and the little brat didnt like it one bit

The Catalan implosion and antics only started after they went 2 scores behind. If they had kept composure they might have had a better chance.
Would imagine they are on a downward spiral. Looking at the players we have missing especially Martin ,it’s a tall order for us to win.
Probably one thing in our favour is we are battle hardened, our last 2 games have been hard. Sometimes it’s not favourable to have a week,off.