I thought Oledski and Sangare had poor games. Scurr and Doro looked like the SL props.

Sangare was pretty anonymous in his first spell but better in his second I thought. I like the look of the Leeds fullback and whoever was in the number 10 jersey. Oledzki put himself about but didn't really stand out as a fulltime SL prop on the verge of international honours. I see Leeds like to try lots of short kick offs and short dropouts. That tactic will get punished at SL level, it didn't work well versus us.

Thought the Leeds youngsters looked ahead of the their opposite numbers from Hull that we played the other week. They may have benefitted from having a few more first teamers in the squad to make it more even as they looked quite useful in attack at times but lacked a bit of experience and physical presence.

You are seriously suggesting that 80% of the squad are not fit enough or injured to play in a game two weeks out of the start of the season. They want play against Hunslet so that leaves Hull KR as the only warm up fixture. Last season the start was a shambles - perhaps they have learned some lessons by restricting the players activity. Given the volume of changes you would think game time together might be a benefit?

Thanks for the feedback.
Wrt the short kick offs and dropouts.
I suppose a friendly is the best place to try it rather than when the season starts.
But we found out last season the short kickoffs didn`t work so I have no idea why we would think this season would be any different.

I can't believe we're persisting with the shte practice of short kick offs in preseason games. Yeah it might help you practice for the odd occasion you use them but it takes away from practicing the things that matter. I've got a familiar feeling about how this season may start despite the recruitment

as i said a few weeks back I genuinely hope smith has learnt from last year but can a leopard change its spots?
the HKR game will be interesting in that regard as its the first pointer as to how we will play

Agree, short kick offs should be a pretty rare exception and short drop outs even rarer.
Would like to see more variety in kick offs. If you went much higher and longer , you could turn it into a contest and minimise the risk of a breakaway try and if goes wrong you hand ball over further down the pitch.
Try some in midfield and try some hard low kick offs between second row and centre and try and get a knock on or touch.

Overall we should be playing hard as we have a better spine and should not need short cut football to try and win.

The other aspect of practicing short kick offs is that when they are repeated over and over without regard to the context of the game (time, score etc) then the element of surprise has gone and you're doing it in a setting that's false.

I hope this all isn't indicative of the approach this year as it was sloppy last year and more of the same won't change that.

There must be an element of surprise in that the opposition must think surely Leeds cant be daft enough to try that [iagain[/i

We did one short kick off during the game (which we won) one short drop out and one with seconds on the clock, it wasn’t really a thing that we were doing as a standard.

We were actually quite structured and nothing like last season’s friendlies

Chris what did you make of Jack Smith then overall? I was thinking Simpson would be our next one off the line but Smith looks decent - lightweight though still.

Another controversial opinion but Luis Roberts seems to be improving too.

Id put Jack Smith as 3rd or 4th choice winger, he looks ready, was excellent in defence too

Thats better to hear, I was envisaging similar to boxing day which wasnt far removed from last year in how we started.

Given his pace I wonder if wing might be where he does make the breakthrough. Would you play him ahead of Olpherts yet?

Great to see a new crop of young players starting to apply pressure to first teamers. I just noticed from the clips again that some of O'Connor's distribution didn't seem on point again, but it could have been just the bit I saw. Hopefully this year the question of who is Leeds reserve hooker will be answered between O'Connor and Johnson.

Yes if play him above Olpherts I think