It wasn’t a traditional short kick off, did you watch it on TV?

what do you mean?

I did.
Austin went for touch around the 10m line and missed, leaving us under pressure. It was a match crying out for game management and playing for field position from the halves and ours were poor. It's hard when you keep losing possession and letting the opposition go the length of the field in 6 tackles though, granted.

Spot on mate

I’m not too surprised or despondent about that one. Conditions were terrible and we are too many troops down in the back 5 when they needed to be skilful.

Thought our pack was ok again, although Tet had very little impact tighter in again and Mik needs game time.

I’ve been impressed with McDonnell.

We missed McDonald tonight he has been our main strike in the backs.

Re FB although I want us to replace Myler he was missed tonight, we needed to skill at the back and short passing into the line on attack. Conditions too poor to really judge Hooley but yes, NRL fullback incoming for me please.

Biggest softy to put on a Leeds shirt in quite some time.

Don't get the weather beating us excuse as it was the same for both sides. Need line speed. Need aggression. Need to stop the stupid errors. The first 2 problems come down to the coach I'm afraid. I'm all for doing things differently but when it doesn't work you change the tactic and move on

Think he means poor tactics and team selection.

Agree but that weather makes every high ball a lottery and both sides really struggled with it on the deck too.

We did allow too much field position though which made us more exposed to the luck of the bounce.

It wasn’t as bad a performance as some are making out: literally swap Olpherts (I am just not a fan) and Hooley for Handley and Myler I reckon we win that game or it’s very close.

Again for Austin fans; tonight is yet another example of why we should let him go. He is inconsistent: he was at Warrington and he is for us too.

Not sure why Roberts gets in ahead of Tindall although he took his try well.

Not winning the arm wrestle playing when we’ve not earnt the right

Claptrap. Fusitu'a went off, obviously in a great deal of pain. How many beers have you had?

Edit: Looking forward to seeing Hooley in action on a dry summer evening with a light to moderate wind.
Olpherts should now, however, be behind McDonald, Handley, Tindall and Roberts (and Vickery) in our team selection.
Not great conditions but that pack and massive subs bench should easily have been good enough to get us at least into their half in the first half.

Taxi for Olpherts (to Odsal)

For the armchair fans, it was a truly horrendous night. Not sure how that came over on the box, but the home ground advantage was massive, as Abdul duly proved. Negatives: Olpherts doesn't look like he even wants to catch a ball. Not just tonight, but in every game this season; Hooley didn’t do anything to convince he is the heir apparent full back, although I can't imagine worse conditions in which to make your debut; We seem to lack the gumption to win the grubby games, not something that was apparent at the back end of last season. Positives - defence was great. We must have made double the tackles and yet their tries came from kicks; Oledzki came through unscathed.

That was a drop out

Ridiculous

That’s how I feel

Don’t get me wrong we weren’t at the races but we didn’t lose because of sloppy defence, we lost because we made two clangers.

Id like to see Olpherts dropped because he was dreadful tonight

Agreed, he’s definitely been underwhelming as a signing, but has horrendous luck with injury. The sole of his foot was pretty much perpendicular to the ground when he went over on the ankle, that’s got to be ligaments and at least a few weeks out. We need to replace him at the end of the year, he just doesn’t play enough.

The defence wasn’t sloppy but we did miss quite a few tackles. We lost because we invited the leagues best kicker to kick us to bits, and dropped it every time he did.

Olpherts does need dropping, out of a plane…

Just on Hooley. I know he had a mare, and he clearly didn't play well enough, but as well as the poor conditions I think he's only played one game (maybe 2?) since coming back from injury and was in the team at short notice. So I think its best to hang fire there. Olpherts I though had got past his clangers last week, but clearly not. Regardless of ability you can't carry players who make too many errors.

I put drop out on my original post

That was the worst possible game for Hooley to make his debut

Yep, horrid conditions for a fullback. What struck me wasn’t the errors, they were always going to come, it was the poor attitude he displayed. That’s a much harder fix.

Apologies- but I really don’t think you could see how strong the wind was, ive no problem with that drop out, it was inches away from being a decent kick, there was no chance of a long drop out in that weather

Poor attitude, or a complete loss of confidence? Needs some time at a lower level to regain it now. Teams will be all over him….. but can come back swinging.
Terrible day at the office, but line drawn…….. let’s see what we can do vs Hudds…..