26 tackles, 9 misses, 3 errors from Walmsley. Ouch. Not what you'd want in an England side. Six misses each for Wilkin, Turner and Thompson.

33 tackles and 23 carries from Cuthbertson. Been a while since we've had a prop out-doing Peacock on the stats in terms of tackles and carries.

Singleton's number for marker tackles is ridiculous, suggests excellent lateral movement.

Saints are getting carried away with Walmsley. He's a fantastic prop who consistently gets us on the front foot. His success has meant that we now look to him all the time. 24 carries for him comparing with 12 for Amor and Savelio and 15 between Thompson, Richards and Masoe. He's being ran into the ground. Missed tackles are largely the result of this. His error count is due to this obsession they have with him developing his offloading game. In fairness, last night saw us chasing the game from 20 mins in and so no doubt we pushed the ball more than usual.

He's a fantastic prop forward who needs to be used properly. When you've Amor capable of doing the bulk of work, Walmsley should be used much more sparingly. I'd have no concerns of him in an England shirt, barring the fact that he'd quickly be in demand from the NRL.

Correct you don't win anything in April. But this season is very different with it being a big advantage to have a top spot and points, going into the super eights where you play every team once, and more so when only the top four in the play offs.

Yes again your coincidence theory is too simplistic.




Where is the biase? - I praised Aiton's performance and I did not praise Burrow's performance.

You miss the point. You say the interchange made a whole change in play and the team couldn't move forward etc etc. I do not agree. As I stated there were several factors that changed the momentum - other interchanges we made during the same period - interchanges the Saints made especially Walsh - errors crept into our game that were nothing to do with the hooker position - Saints started to offload and have more possession.

Also when Aiton was on for the first 33 minutes Saints made a lot of handling errors which gave us momentum and possession. In addition I would point out that all of our tries were scored by the backs coming from a mixture of individual skills of the backs and some good passing and offloads and this style of play was the same no matter who was at acting half back.

For example our first try was against the run of play and was an individual interception try by Handley. His second was from a superb Sutcliffe kick after a backs move. Hardaker's try came from an individual run from Sutcliffe. Maguire's try came from quick acting half back play by Sinfield to get Ablett away. Handley's 3rd try came from brilliant centre play from Moon. Sutcliffe's try came from his own good run after good hands from Sinfield. And Moon's try came after a Saints fumble. Many of these tries were long range and not from positions set up by the forwards due to either hooker.

So I am not saying that Aiton was not influential because I thought he played well, however the hooker interchange was not the main reason for the changes in momentum.

I agree with your comments. I too was worried about our right side defence as once Wash came on they created big overlaps on our right. There was a period when it looked like Ablett went back into the pack and Sutcliffe defended at right centre and I think Singleton might have got injured in the second half.

When Saints have the ball on their right hand side, they stack the left hand side with numbers and throw two long passes to move the ball quickly.

The full back comes in out there, the left sided second rower stands wider and they try to catch defences who have stacked in the middle to stop their big forwards. It forces middle defenders to work hard laterally to follow the ball across, or risk sliding out earlier then getting caught by either Walsh or Burns stepping back on the inside (see Turner's try from Walsh's break).

They'll cause a lot of teams problems doing that all season, it's one of their key attacking ploys.

BMD has always impressed me with how he handles himself, apart from perhaps the rant he had a couple if years back at Catalans. Tony Smith was very good Thursday night after a terrible run for Warrington.

Sutcliffe was playing right centre in the second half and defending next to Burrow who was being hidden out there while Sinfield played stand off but defended centrally. The composition of our right-side defence can't have helped when Saints shifted the ball left.

Not sure Burrow was being hidden he made some good and effective one on one tackles and only missed one. Sutcliffe missed 5 and Ablett missed 3. But as Andy Gilder has pointed out they have a deliberate and effective ploy to out number teams that side. I thought overall we coped well despite the injury disruptions.

Burrow did make some good tackles, but Burrow's tackles are always going to lead to quick play-the-ball. That's not his fault, they just are. Coupled with Sutcliffe in an unfamiliar position and at one stage Delaney seemingly on the wing (sometimes I think BMc is trying to institute an RL version of Ajax's Total Football) it was the obvious area for Saints to attack. That said...they didn't do too badly - all of Saints tries needed a favourable bounce of the ball and our goal-line defence was very good.

Sutcliffe and Ablett were struggling positionally in the 2nd half. But you have to watch the game properly to understand that. It's easier and lazier to assume that the problems were due to our change at hooker.

It's simplistic and patently wrong. Aiton returned for Burrow on 53 mins. It was 28 to 10 at that time. Saints dominance continued well after that switch and had everything to do with Saints attacking Leeds right edge and nothing to do with Aiton and Burrow. In fact, when Saints scored through Turner' 1st try of the 2nd half it was down to poor reads from Sutcliffe, Ablett and Achurch. Saints closed it to 28-16 8 minutes after Aiton replaced Burrow. It took some time after that for Leeds to weather the storm and edge further ahed through Sutcliffe's try.

Nothing changed at all when Aiton came back on for Burrow, though Aiton was superb throughout.

Another thought, McGuire wasn't that great on Friday, gave Moon a couple of awful balls, one of which could have gotten him killed.