The doom and gloom continues. We only beat Cas by 24 points last night!!

That was Scholarship, which always recieves the praise it deserves

You should probably read the thread before posting

Extremely poor, error filled, performance from the reserves today in defeat to Warrington

Edgell and Littlewood played pretty well, as did Aliyu, Warren, Robinson, Smart, Campbell. Lumb had some errors but once he strengthens up he is tall and fast and evasive.

Boys against men at times but just like first grade, slack errors and penalties killed us.

Error after Error, dumb play after dumb play and penalty after penalty, very much like the first team, that is the story of our reserves and Academys season to date during their combined 1 win with 4 defeats.

But ’we'l learn from that' and 'we'l take plenty of positives away'

Problem is, they seem to take too many positives and not enough learning.

Another coach named Smith who should be firmly on the hot seat

Rohan smith, grix, walker and T Smith just inspire zero confidence as a coaching team it just all looks amateur.

Clubs usually have structures plays and calls that are consistent throughout the age groups and various teams, I shudder to imagine what that looks like for Leeds.

I thought Jack Sinfield looked more robust than last season, he has worked on his physicality.

Generally Wira looked physically more mature - but again when you’re playing opposition like that, you have to out-skill them and we failed to.

The ref allowed Warrington to lie on at the ruck to a ridiculous level too, it was embarrassing.

How are the games looking under the new rules?

I couldn’t see much evidence they’ve been applied mate. Night and day from last year, common sense may just have prevailed.

I was more bothered about the ref allowing Wire to lay on literally 5 seconds per ruck at times.

I heard a quote from someone in the media that so far in SL the number of tackles making contact with the head has gone from around 12% to 3%, albeit a small sample size so far. So perhaps they're being lenient in the reserves because the adjustments made to the rules in SL is already having the desired effect on reducing contact with the head.

I agree on the play the ball. I'd like to see if the PTB speed has increased, because it still looks a mess and is policed inconsistently

It’s great that head contacts have been reduced, the interpretation has eased now and let’s hope we’re about where we need to be.

Bentley’s concussion issue was making a tackle though; this is not uncommon.

We have to make a hard job easier for refs and keep the rules as effective but simple as possible. Honestly I’d be blowing the pea out for some of the crappy spoiling tactics in the ruck. Sometimes I feel Leeds players could be better at finding their fronts but some of that is physical.

U18s well beaten by Wigan tonight. Presumably we'll hear we fielded a very young team and it will be invaluable for their development. May well be true. GH keeps repeating we currently have the best crop of youngsters for 20 years. I get to as many Academy and Scholarship games as I can and I'm struggling to see the same thing. I see us beaten regularly by the Wigan and Saints of this world which doesn't fill me with any confidence we'll be closing the gap any time soon. Would be very happy to be proved wrong though.

Ive watched a lot of these first years youngsters through the junior game. Im not gunna mention no names. It seems to me that they are giving the ones who are on the biggest contracts all the game time. They are obviously not performing. There are players who i think who are not getting picked i think should be picked who are better than the ones who are. Players who are picked not getting enough time on the field. Surely this is still a results business, even at this age. Time for the axe for a few for a while maybe ?

The only first year not playing regular who deserves to be is Dylan Hutchinson, but he's got Fergus McCormack in front of him so thats undersandable at 6, i personaly think Hutchinson is a better player and fullback than Diskin, so i would play him there...The club seem to love Diskin however.

Other than that, all the best first years are getting plenty of game time.

Unfortunately, our coaching and development at this level just isnt good enough, all other clubs players become tougher and more intelligent rugby players when they move from Scholarship to Academy, ours go the opposite way. Its not good enough and the club need to stop treating the appointments at Academy level as an afterthought and start looking for best in class for that level

Decent turnout in the cold for the U16s tonight.

Standouts for me were Dan Stelfox at prop; big lad with great leg drive. Back row of Lloyd, Tinkler and Jacob Hardy all good.

Halves had good craft. Centres also looked ok, Ellis has decent height and could be interesting once he fills out.

Some weak D from some players at times but overall comfortable win with a couple of well taken tries.