Our only weakness was one player, who gifted you all but one. Had he not been there you wouldn't have come within cooey.

but maybe caused a few cracks in the wigan camp ?

I completely see your point, however:

At the beginning of the season if you'd offered me, by this stage of the season, a WCC win, a place in the CC final after beating Wigan against the odds in the semi, and 5th place in the league, still within striking distance (albeit admittedly an outside shot...) I'd have taken it in a heartbeat. Would I have liked us to have played better in the league and lost less games? Obviously... But in life you very rarely if ever get everything you want. In 2005 we were almost unstoppable for the first two thirds of the season, but yet ended up winning sweet FA. Last year we were pretty awful for the first two thirds of the season, yet we won a Grand Final and, as a direct result, a WCC. Which year was a better year to be a Leeds fan when all was said and done?

Of course, there's a 50/50 chance we will lose at Wembley again, and I would be foolish to expect another Grand Final win from 5th, but this Leeds team have taught me to never give up, no matter what. More often than not (with the exception of CC finals) Leeds have made a habit of winning when it really matters. This year, hopefully we can put things right at Wembley - if we come out of this season with a WCC and a Challenge Cup, you won't find me caring too much about what league matches we did and didn't win.

The bigger picture is that, with the WCC and the Wembley final, it will be another profitable year financially for the club. At a time when finances in rugby league are under the microscope more than ever, this should not go unmentioned - transition periods are inevitable in sport, but regularly making it to finals will make any such transition a lot less difficult, meaning that there will be every chance of future success. Personally, after a win like that today, a few poor league displays mean very little to me.

it was a fantastic display full of skill, determination and discipline. does it not make you think whats happened all season?

what would the bulls give to be in our position

Yeah, leeds should have won by more, the missed sinfield kicks, the silly try before halftime and the missed try for hall at the end saw to that. Leeds could easily have won that by 20+ points.

But it's irrelevant, talking about margin of victory in a semi final is just.....stupid.

You sound like you're trying to console yourself, i don't blame you. Just a few weeks ago you put 50 on us at home, the semi should have been in the bag yet you found a way to play crap and blow it.

Well done.

I won’t be on the radio but it’s opened up doors to be writing for a channel four production which I’ll be getting paid for. I’ll be getting the starting date soon which will be en of July/start of August. Can’t wait and thanks for asking

Very fair point. One which perhaps points a lot more fingers at the players than at the coach. I would hazard a guess that Brian McDermott did/said very little different to what he does most weeks, yet the players performed very differently to how they have done at times this year.

Why?

1) Momentum - once you start playing badly, it's not always the easiest thing in the world to pull yourself out of the slump. We were very fortunate to get a run of 3 very easily winnable and one fairly easily winnable games in the run up today. Regardless of the opposition, wins are wins, and they make players feel good. Going into a game like today will be a damn sight easier than going into it after 4 losses.

2) As much as it pains me to say it, this site's biggest wind up merchant has a point when he drones on incessantly about super league's whipping boys and the structure of the league leaving itself wide open to abuse. Leeds have played awfully a lot of the time this year, but yet have made sufficient use of confidence gained by wins against said "whipping boys" combined with a tried and tested "turn up when it matters" mentality to both qualify for a cup final, and be near enough to the top four to have all of them looking over their shoulders with a bit of trepidation come play offs time.

It's infuriating, but the level of competition and structure of a season make it a lot easier for Leeds to keep doing this than it should be.

Wigan only beat us 8-50 because we were terrible haha, that night our discipline was the worst ive seen it, but all joking aside it was a very good performance not great because i still think we need to defend better, i agree the hardakers tries shouldnt have been given, but if it was the other way round ppl would be saying "you play to the whistle" and thats all he did.

Yes we did play crap and yet only lost by 9 points against what everyone on here thinks was a great Leeds pereformance. If that was Leeds playing great, only winning by 9 points and conceeding 28 against an awful Wigan display then I hardly see how Leeds fans can be getting so excited about it. Are you all really that fickle that all of a sudden everything is rosy? Wigan were crap, as bad as they have been all season, and yet could have won with a better refereeing display and not making stupid mistakes. If you lose the final I am sure you will all change your tune again.

i agree. they probably looked at the last ten games and thought take it easy then wind it up and the back end and hit the play offs with momentum.
if it works great but for the season ticket holder its been a hard two seasons

windbag

we won by 11

we are a team imo that is in transition, yes youre still a better side overall and are much more consistant but the way we have been written off by alot of the wigan fans all week its nice to prove to the rest of SL we are not done yet

Great game.....great result, made all the sweeter by it being Wigan.

Does today and the WCC win erase the dross we have seen the same team produce during the season? Only if you were the most anal of gloryhunting bandwaggoners....and we surely don't still have some of them within our ranks?

The rest of us are fairly happy to take the rough with the smooth, and comment on each game as it turns out. And today was very smooth.

So, with all due respect to the sanctimonious brigade, perhaps today is not the time for chelping.