I agree Sutcliffe cost us 6 points by not passing to Watkins and some other passes should have been better but that doesn't absolve Watkins from another poor display. John Wells demonstrated at half time how Watkins does not run good lines and is often in the wrong position to help the young stand off. He showed why this contrasted with Keinhorst who positioned much better deeper and wider so he could run into space. Watkins may have good feet but he has become a lazy player with suspect handling and not very good at reading a game.

Yup.

Got used to having silver service from McGuire and Sinfield putting him into gaps. Without them, he looks half the player. Struggling to think of a less effective centre in SL at the moment, even Keinhorst is outplaying him with the ball.

Not necessarily disagreeing about Watkins going backwards...but I seem to remember much criticism of our former esteemed half back pairing in being too slow and incapable of putting our 'best back line in SL' into space

We may not end up beating a top side in further rounds but I remember hearing the same line after the 2014 season ended that we wouldn't beat the top sides in 2015.....when we did then the inevitable line was "well the quality of the other sides is poor"

I was quite worried after the 4 game debacle around Easter but TBH even though the last three weeks have only heralded one win out of three I'm now very confident of this group heading into 2017 and beyond....yes we'll have to eat a sh*t sandwich a bit between then but then again for all those who love giving us their Last of The Summer Wine tales of the 80's, I recall many games in 2001/2002 when those youngsters lost games like that.

Yes but wasn't it mostly from you though? Wasn't "ponderous" the word?

Watkins should be sent to Fev on dual reg for mine.

Tbf I was saying this about Watkins in 2013 and was getting shot down on here by everyone blaming the halfbacks and the coach for not getting him ball.

Think that was mainly from you.

Maybe it was...don't think I was the only one though. I certainly wish we had our 'ponderous' pair now though (although Lilley does seem to be getting better and better; pity about the other half)

Yet another flip flop

Not the only one but certainly the main one....at least if we put Golding to HB he won't have to drop so many bombs though

And definitely about Sutcliffe....it's one of the few times me and Gotcha have been on the same page since day one so it must be correct

Lilley has the most clue for Leeds ball in hand and on the foot (not difficult in McGuire's absence) but if I were an opposition coach I'd find wherever Lilley/Sutcliffe or Lilley/Burrow are defending and keep going at them every set. Then on the last any sort of high kick will find Golding/Handley spilling around half of them.

After the Hull game it was said Golding clearly isn't going to be a winger, I think we can add full-back to that assessment. What's his actually position supposed to be?

I think also the excuse of Watkins being overworked in defence can be lessened tonight, because whilst they were times he had both Lilley and Sutcliffe over there (although Sutcliffe did 4th man in at times) plenty of time tonight (and other games) it was Lilley and Burrow out on the left which meant it was Keinhorst (Moon in other games) having to defend further in and he again had a good game I think.

So now Lilley is proving he's every bit a SL yer writing off Golding as a FB after an average game?