The one thing Hull showed on Sunday, is that organised one line defence is how you stop Castleford. The minute you start jumping out, they hit you, and again when Hull slacked on this Cas hit them. On that basis, JJB's defence is the massive issue we have for Friday, so if you meant important as in him not doing his usual but actually sticking to the one line, then yeah you are correct.

So who'll provide that for us?
We've not got any forwards with the power of Watts, Taylor or Bowden.

JJB has led the defensive line which for so many years has been a proven strength for Leeds and he still leads our line. However often the problem is that his team mates are too slow to follow his fast line speed and he sometimes gets the blame when if fact it is others having a rest.

Your second bit is just rubbish Juan. JJB puts in massive effort in defence that is unquestionable, but his excuberance in jumping out costs us a lot of times. As I stated in my initial post, a structured one line is how you beat Cas, and one man going against that is not the blame of his team mates however you want to spin that.

They score virtually all their tries on the edge and Im guessing over half their tries are scored by wingers, so how is a middle defender jumping out to apply pressure gonna be a major problem?

I would rather we all moved up and in and test Gale's short kicking game than sit back and watch them score multiple tries off the same set move over and over again

You obviously don't watch them, or maybe unsure what one line defence is. The move to the wing comes from the middle from the space created, and the oppossition edge defence sucking in to cover. They do it time and time again, and on both sides.

Gotcha is right, Castleford make the space in the centre (mostly from the forwards throwing line balls) then push it out to the edges quickly and accurately where they have too many options to be able to reliably predict and defend. As Hull have shown twice this year if you resist the urge to bite in on the ball carrier and wait for them to hit the line and quickly smother the ball to prevent the offload you nullify a large part of their attack. Running out on Gale will be useless as a Cas player will be looking to run at the hole left behind and Gale is smart enough to make that play. The focus should be on going up as a unit and cutting down his options.

Another thing Hull took advantage of, and it's something I mentioned after the magic weekend, is that their backs in general aren't overly physical. There were a few times where the Hull backs were in a 1 on 1 against their Cas equivalent and they just went straight over the top of them. We should be looking to get Hall up against Minikin as much as possible as there will only ever be one winner.

Our right side defence has looked better since the Magic weekend all be it they haven't faced the same level of test that Cas will throw at them. Briscoe has improved since then also.

As hinted at above, Minikin was really poor on Sunday and should be the one of the back 3 to target.

Cas have Leeds number, is it 7 wins on the bounce and won the last 4 at Headingley?

Cas will be up for this, the quick turnaround and getting back on the horse ASAP will actually benefit them imo.

They've lost this season a few times and followed it up by dishing out some right ings rather than sulking.

Cas by 18

True.

We need to get Hall one on one with Minikin as much as possible.

Lost to Salford, fell 14-0 behind to Catalans before eventually winning 43-26

Lost to Saints away and followed it up by 18-0 down at Hull and when Hull had a man sent off they still couldn't win.

The week after they did hammer an injury hit Wigan.

So one real good response from 3. The previous two they went behind 14-0 & 18-0 in the opening 15 mins respectively.

My mistake. Followed up 2 out of 3 losses with big wins the following week and the one they didn't follow up with a win was a 3 day easter turnaround.

Too soon to write their obituary. Best to give it longer than a mediocre 80 minutes and even then they only lost on penalty kicks away at the cup holders.

Nobody is writing their obituary, far from it. Cas are still favourites for SL i would say at this point but not as far ahead of the field as they perhaps were a few weeks ago. Plus, we look a far better unit ourselves since that drubbing we took earlier in the year and have closer to a full strength team so a bit more reason to be optimistic, but certainly no cockiness involved. Hoping for a good game and at least looking for us to put in a good 80 minute performance against them for the first time in a couple of years.

Having to claw back against Catalans especially given Cas' other home performances was hardly a great showing. And Hull had the same turnaround and play a man down for 60 mins.

It's also 6 wins on the trot and 3 at Headingley but let's not pretend Leeds were in good shape for those games. 2015 we got given a 4 day turnaround Sunday - Thursday and was inevitably knackered for the Cas game and Cas caught us post Wembley when we slumped and also lost to Saints and Catalans comfortably. 2016, pfffftt.....everyone had our number last year we were awful, hardly anything to brag about beating us then. This year we had 8 guys who will most likely feature on Friday missing and at Magic we lost two starting props midweek and still were the better team in the first half and the 2nd half wasn't Cas coming up with some Plan B to win the game, it was us throwing it away with needless errors.

The 6 in a row sounds impressive but Cas have landed quite lucky in when they've faced us for a while.

A fair point. Probably the only one you wouldn't fancy in a fight is Webster, not that Leeds' backs are overly physical. I think the QF loss in that weather, together with the 2 day less turnaround will be too much for Cas. If they can get up from the Hull loss & get a victory it promises well for the rest of the season. If not it could be the mental side that is their undoing.