It was all part of the plan. McDermott is an evil genius.

You see you only get a set allocation of good form, so Leeds played rubbish on purpose so they could use up their allocation of good form at the end of the season, when the trophies are handed out.

Agree that the team cannot peak throughout the season and that they got the timong right.

One area of concern I have though is the difficulty we have in scoring tries in the opposition 20 without the need to kick. Evenin the playoffs I think we have struggled with plays and dummy runners in the oppositions 20.

To me this is one area that does not seem to have been addressed at all. Maybe that is deliberate ie not showing plays during the season. Maybe it causes less defence and keeps the team fresher for the end of the season. i don't know but there will be times when the team needs to be able to execute those plays.

Exactly.
There are only 3 finals as it were in the season, the WCC, the Challenge Cup & the Grand Final.
We were in all 3 & won 2, so very nearly a perfect season.
I'm not aware that the qualification for any of these changed during the course of the season therefore all participants knew what they had to do at the start of the season.

PS the most embarrassing thing about this thread is the mis-spelling of "embarrassing" in the title.

We did manage it twice in the GF though. The BJB try featured 2 dummy runners, plus one missed out by the final pass.

The Ablett try was done through angles and timing, with a good blindside play from dummy half.

I do think we look more threatening near the line with McGuire in the team than without, but Webb was probably our most effective playmaker in those positions for a number of years, and I think we need to replace that.

Ok so saying that the team were coasting or not trying may be harsh but there were definitely times in the season where the difference in form from one week to the next was immense.

The only explanation I can logically conclude was that our playing style, game plans and overall tactics were tampered with sufficiently to cause vast divide between performances.

This was obviously not a bad thing if the ultimate goal is to lift silverware but if you want to see consistent week on week performances then another approach needs to be adopted.

So I guess it’s a trade-off – consistent performances or silverware? TBH I know which one I’d choose and that includes a trip to OT every October.

He was. Passing forward works as a great stumbling block for defensive lines etc. More people should try it.