The kick chase where he crunched Kearney into the post late on was his best moment, great effort for a big man and sure to be missed by some.

Incidently shouldn't Leeds have received the drop out as the ball was clearly behind the line. (Especially when you consider the howler Silverwood had inflicted on Wellens in a similar incident although obviously you can't connect the two.) Terrible calls, both wrong. No wonder Kearney jumped to his feet to play the ball.

Attempting to judge Cross so soon is a little unwise. Some thought Delaney made a promising start last season .... it didn't last.

Made 31 tackles, no misses, including six marker tackles.

Pretty good IMO.

Oh, and those 59 metres came at over 6 metres a carry - roughly what other props at Leeds were producing across 2010 IIRC.

I was going to mention that earlier! He was holding it between his knees FFS! Not even picked up on by any of the commentary team, and surprisingly missed out of the Bradford fans' lists of refereeing errors.

He came to ease the load on other forwards, if he is only going to manage 59 meters I'm sure a youngster could put a similar shift in. If we are going to use a quota spot, I'd hope it would be for the best players available, not an average prop. Having said that was his first full competitive game so he has plenty room to improve.

Leeds fans haven't taken to the new antipodean signing after his first game in SL resulted in average statistics.

Shocker.

Anybody know where bears do their business?

I thought he looked solid both going forward and in defence. So far looks a good signing to me.

He is a clone of Kylie Leuluai, which all things considered is ok. I am a little concerned about our overall lack of go forward in the front row without Peacock, but Cross can only do what he can do. If he turns out to be a bit of a duffer then don't blame the bloke blame the bloke that signed him.

All of our starting front row on Sunday were from Overseas and were all (well) over 30. Not good.

To be fair, Peacock & Bailey were injured, Pitts, Ambler & Clarkson are young and English, and Ablett is only 25 (ish!?), Kirke & JJB are both sub 30 and English too.

We could easily have

Ambler McShane Bailey
Pitts Ablett
Clarkson.

That's an all English pack with the average age of 24 (ish?).

No need to make it sounds QUITE so doom & gloom!


Edit - Yes I've realised Ambler has represented Ireland. My bad... an all British pack.

And you'd be happy with the pack named above would you? It would get murdered every week.

It wasn't so much a doom and gloom, more pointing out something that needs correcting over the next 2 years. Especially when you consider that Peacock will be retired by then, Bailey is unlikely to improve significantly and Burgess will be in Aus. IMHO we will need to sign at least one, probably two good English props within the next two years.

I'd say the same...although I still have high hopes of and faith in Ambler: pity he didn't have this season to cement his place.

Cross needs to improve a hell of a lot (we know Kirke definitely won't) to convince me either is worth Ambler's place in the squad.

Hood looks as though he might be good enough to take the place of Buderus.

Leuluai must be very near his last year as well.

Perhaps but like a fine wine he is still getting better with age.

Or not.

I agree, over the next couple of years we'd need to pad out our pack (when Peacock, Cross, Leulaui go).

However by either luck or design the match on Sunday was on Sunday, and not 2 years from now on a Sunday. We're playing right now. So I don't see how it's a problem that on Sunday our front row was 30+ & Overseas. We haven't signed Ben Cross to win us SL '13 have we?!

Leuluai, Buderus & Cross may be over 30 & overseas but they were on the bus home with 2 points.
Graham, Roby & McCarthy-Scarsbrook are all young and English but had to share the points.

Take it a match at a time, and judge them based on that.

Yeah I have to agree with the lack of British props/forwards coming through - It seemed the club tried to address this with the addition of Pitts, Armour, Ambler and we have Burgess.. but to be honest i'm not sure at all if any of them will make international honours.. time will tell i suppose. Props especially need plenty of time to mature and develop - don't they say props tend not to peak until 28ish.. i'm sure i recall Barry Mac saying that a while back..

Regarding my original question of Cross, good to see no-one writing him off yet.. i think he'll settle and go well.