Hello mates

Why is the squad on the YouTubes and no on the website?

The frustrating thing I find, and I'm guessing BMD wasn't pleased either, is that they were slowing [ievery[/i PTB, yet the first time we didn't clear quick or came in just too late with a second tackler we were pinged. Refs must realise that there are teams who work on the principle if they slow evevry single PTB down then they can get away with it. Leeds were trying to clear the ruck, yet every time we tried to slow things it was a penalty - particularly after the forst 25 minutes when the ref obviously got penalty fatigue with Hudds and switched things around.

One thing I would say though, the swing in penalties came just after Hudds brought on their two interchanges after around 25 minutes and started to win collisions. Up to then Leeds had dominated collisions, after that for most of the game Hudds had the upper hand. So maybe the ref thought they earned the right to lay on for half an hour. Even if you win the collision you should still clear the ruck quickly though.

I suspect it boils down to laziness from the likes of Bentham. Slow ptb = less running about needed. I'm sometimes surprised not to see him lying on at the tackle.

I think it's also fair to say that some teams are a little more canny at slowing things down than others. Hudds and Wigan are particularly good at it. It's a skill we could perhaps get better at, albeit one we might like to see refs get a bit better at spotting. It was generally quite hard to see exactly why things were taking so long in our second half ptb's rather than there being a glaring infringement to ping. We conceded a couple of penalties for rather obvious late arrivals and shoves. We need to be smarter than that.

Brett Ferres was the obvious exception, who seemed to have turned up without his brain attached to his body. He's a player I like a lot, but on Thursday I thought he was absolute garbage, and one of the unworthiest try scorers you'll see all year!

We tried it a 3 or 4 seasons ago and ended up conceding 20 penalties a game, culminating in a bemused Kevin Sinfield being interviewed after one whistle blowing marathon trying to work out why Leeds were being penalised to death every game while doing "the same as everyone else"? We are not very good at it and it's not in the club culture.

I don't think the impact of having an offload game up the middle from Cuthbertson can be underestimated.

For the last couple of years teams haven't had to worry too much about Leeds breaking them down the centre of the field. Now they do, and that's going to force them to defend a little tighter leaving more space on the fringes for the likes of Ward, Watkins, Ablett and Moon to exploit.

Structurally, I can't see a massive difference in shape or patterns from what we've done in the past but everything does seem to be moving at a less pedestrian pace than it was at times, last year in particular.