Quote: PrinterThe "Galloway probably wouldn't get in if Garbutt and Mullally were fit, but he and Peteru would both be ahead in the pecking order of what we ended up having on the bench
These players missing probably wouldn't have a big influence in terms of anything special ball in hand but it's about sharing the workload in the forwards and working as a unit. The likes of Cuthbertson could've done more had he had some bigger and better teammates in the prop position. Not every player in a 17 is there to do something special, some are there to do a role that allows others to be match winners.
By the time Melbourne lost Slater at HT
the damage had already been done.'"
And I don't see anybody saying that Leeds would have won, or denying the size of the gap between NRL and SL, but to say Leeds missing players wouldn't have made any difference is ridiculous and sensationalist.
Printer put it very well - there were some of our better players absolutely gassed from having to do the majority of the graft. Cuthbo, Watkins, Hall, Briscoe, Singo, JJB, Sutcliffe appeared to do a ton of donkey work. With some more able back up forwards, this wouldn't have been so much of a necessity. Melbourne would still have won, comfortably, but we'd have been in the contest for longer. Our 20 mins good spell at the beginning of the game showed we could hang with them, but we tired, and they were efficient, effective and ruthless, as Melbourne always are. They'll beat a number of NRL sides more convincingly throughout the season, that I guarantee. Doesn't alter the fact that NRL is lightyears ahead of SL, but the lads did themselves proud. And put them in the NRL, with the benefit of getting used to being happy required to play high intensity and quality week on week and they'd hold their own - they'd get spanked some weeks, but they'd compete most weeks. There's probably only 3 or 4 teams in SL at best that could do that - the majority would Ben slaughtered week in, week out.