Aye.

There ain't too many Dream Teams selected where the 7th placed SL club gets 5 of their players included.

To be fair it sums up both the league and where we are as a club.

We have some top players, but that team is increasingly becoming made up of players who are past their best.

Names, Lieutenant!

Yeah, but the other 8 were sooooo awful.

I may be being overly pedantic and / or philosophical but isn't the 'Dream team' arguably the one that achieves the end goal? (In this case winning the SL?)

Obviously I understand the concept of 'dream team' (ie. the best players in each position across all those competing) but put it this way - would you rather there were 8 or 9 Leeds players but no SL title, or 0 or 1 Leeds players, but the title?

I think some of the 5 who got in were more by default rather more than anything else.

yes I think a new coach is needed. BM has been frustrating. the trophy haul, for which he deserves fantastic credit has been tempered with some abject displays, odd use of subs and bizarre tactics. its rumoured he will move upstairs at the end of this season to oversee RL and RU sides. a good move for him and the club I would say.
A new coach would then be free to overhaul the side and possibly this is why major recruitment has been left to next season

I'm not sure Briscoe could currently be considered one of the best wingers in the league but I think Hall and Hardaker are fair shouts. I think both Wigan wingers, Monaghan, Makinson and a couple others are ahead of Briscoe, certainly in terms of last year's superleague form, but if you mean as a complete unit I think it's a fair opinion. For my own part I don't think there's much in it with the Wigan back three though to be honest.

I agree with your second point too. It was a revelation to see how Hall's form improved at the four nations playing alongside Sarginson. I know he always seems able to raise his game at international level but, nevertheless, they really seemed to gel as a partnership. Sarginson certainly had the knack of creating the space Hall thrives in and we all know the standard of his finishing when he gets that kind of space! I think this raises a point that Tad Rhino brings up in his post. I'm not convinced that the Leeds back 5 are the best as a unit. Individually they have all the credentials but it's the partnerships that appear lacking to me.

Just as a point of comparison with Wigan (which is obviously the team I see most) it seems to me that the partnerships are more than the sum of their parts. Burgess had an outstanding first season playing outside Sarginson culminating in being nominated for YPOTY and elevation into the national squad. Charnley scored 19 tries in just 16 games playing outside Gelling who was immense in making the hard yards which, as a result, made it much easier for Charnley to do what he does best in finishing tries. This last partnership in particular maybe highlights the problem best. The stats suggest Hall is doing far too much work away from the tryline. I don't know the reasons for this, of course, but I'm guessing from your post and others that it's a combination of misfunctioning halves and Moon simply not putting him in space as he perhaps should be.

Whatever the reasons, I think it's fair to say that the combinations as they stand aren't really getting the best out of the individual players. This might be a simplistic solution (albeit one that's been known to work) but has a switch of wing/centre partners ever been tried? Watkins' and Hall's games seem more suited to me, although I would qualify that by saying that is based purely on skillset rather than ever having seen either played 'out of position'. Perhaps the same could be true for Moon and Briscoe?

I'm one of those who can only visualise Hardaker at FB and while I wouldn't claim there were many, if any, better at that position playing in SL I do acknowledge that some attacking aspects of his game are perhaps limited. It's unfortunate that our centres (and I don't include Ablett, BTW) share some of these deficiencies. These deficiencies are of course compounded by slow ball from the ruck area.

I don't think its the slow ball it that our half backs never attack the line and neither have the speed these days to break it. The opposition know what's coming so they can get prepared.

Would anyone trial Briscoe at Centre and move Moon to the Wing? Briscoe looked a good centre on Boxing Day. I know people will say "Look at Vickery" but it was against a strong looking Wakefield Side.

Super League Fullbacks

rlhttp://rugbyam.co.uk/top-5-full-backs-in-super-league/rl

Who is this Briscoe?

I thought it was Broscoe????

pathetic one-eyed leeds rhinos biased rubbish
didnt they see his terrible 'per carry' stats?
etc etc

I think if one of the centres is missing then I'd like to see Briscoe moved there with Handley coming in on the wing. Keinhorst did an alright job for Way on loan when he eventually got injury-free but I think a club that's going to find itself in that middle 8 is about his level. Either way as long as we've seen the last of the Ward/Sutcliffe selection at centre.

Can't really say I see Moon as a winger, especially when ours are expected to run it hard back at the start of sets to give our forwards a breather. And that for me is the problem with Moon, he's not a natural centre IMO, wouldn't be a natural winger and whilst he has some skills that could suit a halfback position, could he lead a team around a pitch? Have the kicking game etc? He's a good RL player yet he has no clear cut position where he looks fully suited to.

With the same ponderous halfbacks in 2013 Watkins went on to score 8 tries in 6 games AS A WINGER with Ablett as his centre......so it can be done. That spell of games was probably Watkins best run of form over several games in the few seasons and it wasn't as a centre.

In fact during McDermott's spell as coach, Watkins has played wing 12 times and scored 15 tries there.