A fair post, I'm sure once the alcohol wears off I'll fully agree. Deffo agree re Westwood though. Onwards & upwards, we're much more effective when the pressure is on. It's always harder to retain a title than to win it for the first time

Not really. The only time that comes close to deja vu is 2004 and 2008 when leeds were soundly beaten by bradford and saints respectively but managed to reverse it 2 weeks later.

Can they do that again except with warrington? The difference here of course is they'll be doing it in the final eliminator intead of the grand final, and they'll be bouncing back against saints instead of wigan.

I thought defensively we were shocking especially 2nd half and more so around the ptb.
Hardaker ,JP and Burrow were our best players imo but still missed tackles with RB and ZH also making some handling errors.
Mags had a mare and as a team we got our 5th tackle structure wrong time after time.
Again some really stupid penaltys conceded that pushed us further back and imo Achurch and Clarkson should come in for Kirke and if not fit Delaney.
I'd be tempted to drop Ablett aswell but doubt it will happen i hope he regains his form that he showed against the Pies.
Watching Roby tonight he'll rip us apart if we dont sort our defence around the ptb.
I still think if we turn up and play to our ability we'll beat anyone but we need to react better when we get poor calls against us.

Beat fair and square - it happens - onwards and upwards

Good to see Burrow and Sinfield getting the blame for McGuire digging himself a massive hole and hiding down it in yet another big game.

Fingers crossed he does a Diskin, banks his benefit and clears off so we can see more of Sutcliffe.

Hardly getting the blame. You've jumped on 1 post and run with it. For what it's worth though, I thought Sinfield was awful.

There still seems to be a belief from some that just because we're Leeds that we'll brush off this minor setback and storm into the GF. Maybe it will still happen, but I don't see this as deja vu. It's a big wake up call, not deja vu.

Can't criticise Sinfield who was as bad if not worse than McGuire today - myopic Gilder nothing new there

You're referring to one line of my post. Nice logic-leaping but I was noticing the structure not blaming the players. We were playing with three half-backs. McGuire, as the widest, hardly had a chance to impose himself.

Bad day at the office. Plenty of parts will under par today. We have plenty of improvement to make, or will be out

Brilliant one week, poor to average the next. This is McDermotts Leeds. He's very consistent at producing inconsistency.

He's also consistent in producing GF wins.

Although I agree I thought last week we looked the business this week we looked knackered

Not at Harlequins he wasn't. Whereas the Leeds players were winning them consistent;y before he arrived.

Take it you're not a Brian mac fan then?

Anyways I actually think our current team has peaked, I don't think we will make the GF this year or the next, I'm fact it will be a very interesting few years as the old guard makes way for the new.

.....not least making better use of the bench: Kirke's selection continues to baffle and the non use of Singleton and Sutcliffe until late in the game is hard to fathom.

Sinfield at DH looks far more dangerous:

have faith in Sutcliffe to take over more last tackle plays with an alternating Burrow jumping in at DH on an irregular basis.