has to be down to not being allowed. look at Hardaker now, looks like Wally Lewis at times given the freedom from Powell but was hammered constantly on here for having no passing game.

I don't know why people have decided golding looks like a natural half back. Is it from his academy days? I've never seen a kicking game from him, his attacking ability seems non existent and I can't claim to have seen obvious strength in organising and passing. I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm just wondering what people have seen to think he is best suited there.

Regarding the handley decision on the bench. Before the game my thought was that maybe McDermott went with that as cas are so mobile and throw the ball around. Move sutcliffe to the back row and handley to centre and you have an option of someone who is mobile and can make a break in sutcliffe. JJB, Delaney, Fat Ferress are not the mobile 2nd rowers they used to be. So maybe BMcD saw moving sutcliffe there as a different dynamic depending how the game was going with a mobile cas. Rather than having Baldwinson on the bench who is another plodder.

However that was all put to bed when briscoe got subbed for handley. Briscoe looks an absolute shadow of himself and handley is not the answer.

Bit harsh on blaming JJB & Mags who gave away 1 penalty each when it was more down to errors and a lack of tactical kicking and great finishing by Cas at a crucial time in the game.

IMO Handley has always shown defensive weakness both in positional play and a lack of commitment in the tackle. Briscoe is not the same player he was a couple of years back and now lacks speed and concentration. I would be selecting young Walker

Maybe if he signs for Cas we will see a more improved attacking full back who can also defend.

I would certainly be selecting Walker ahead of both Briscoe and Handley and would have done before last nights errors from these two. Briscoe if out of form and is lacking concentration. Handley has shown in the past he can run with the ball but IMO has always lacked defensive commitment in the tackle and does not have good hands.

Golding has been outstanding in defense at fullback and has shown he is an elusive runner and often is backing up the ball carrier without getting the pass. As a junior he showed great attacking qualities and I think he was been concentrating of improving his defensive game first and now he has done that we will see the attacking side of his game blossom too.

Those were my thoughts too. We knew Cas would move the ball wide and I was concerned at our lack of speed in the forwards to deal with this threat. But Briscoe's errors forced his hand. Hindsight is easy but I am not sure Baldwinson would have made much of a difference against Cas.

But they were stupid penalties, straight after half time when Cas had just had 15 mins rest.

Unnecessary and sadly all too frequent.

They scored from the next set.

Must say Moon is excellent though and deserves a lot of praise.

Well we put in a better performance than I thought we would, the game was lost on the bench as we couldn't keep the physical intensity up for the full 80 but that is an easy fix.

What's not an easy fix is our lateral defence, especially on our right edge. For Eden's first try I'm fairly certain it was a 6v3 which is insanely poor numbering up and then there was little effort to rectify it. For all the complaints about Handley's defence he was left to mark Shenton and Eden repeatedly so he was never going to have much success. It doesn't excuse his effort for Eden's last though, that was all down to him. I still think we should persist with Handley for a few weeks and give Briscoe a bit of time off to sort himself out as he is clearly struggling with something.

What was interesting was how easy it was for us to score on their edges, our outside backs crashed over quite easily and hopefully we'll be looking to exploit this the next time we meet. Sutcliffe is looking increasingly comfortable at centre and I hope McDermott resists the temptation to move Sutcliffe elsewhere when we have players back.

I think we're not far off from becoming a top team again, we just need a better halfback combination and a change in the coaching set up, preferably a new head coach but if that's not feasible then a couple of attack minded assistants.

We did score easily out wide, but the game had gone and Cas had the rookies Foster and Holmes filling in at centre for Webster, and a missing Roberts. We didn't crash over when the game was live.

Time to move handley on to pastures new. He has had his chances . Briscoe is completely out of form, although to be fair to him it's been sometime since he has had any decent ball. Feel sorry for moon and Watkins who both looked dangerous all the game.
Congratulations to cas they play smart rugby. When the occasion demands it ,they spin the ball wide as quick as possible.
I rate Shenton he is a wingers centre, he will release the ball when it's required, other than that he will take the ball forward himself.
Don't know what happened after half time ,all the good things we did in the first half we stopped doing. Our play the ball/ruck game was once again slow. If you look at robys performance for saints shows just how vital that area of the game is.

We stopped doing the tough stuff in the 2nd half that we'd done successfully in the 1st. We tried to take shortcuts with a few silly passes/offloads and not controlling the ruck either with good enough contact or not getting enough men into the tackle.
When we did that tough stuff in the 1st half we matched them and more at times.

With hindsight having both Handley and Burrow on the bench probably left us too light however I can see the thinking behind that decision.

Take out the awful kick that led to their length of the field try and it's a very close game.

There's things for us to fix but it's not the end of the world by any means.

Credit also must go to Cas both for a very good performance and the way they play the game. The try with Shenton's pass out the back was a joy to watch. I don't particularly mind us conceding tries like those.

I hadn't noticed that Webster had gone off, he would have made a difference in defence. I would say we were still in it when Moon scored as we were taking control but then we failed to maintain any pressure and Cas did an excellent job of making sure the game was played in our half during the last quarter. When we eventually got back down there Sutcliffe scored.

That was a fantastic bit of play from Shenton. That try shows just how well drilled Cas are, Shenton didn't even have to look to know that Eden was there because they've practiced that move repeatedly until it's second nature.

It was 28-6 when Moon scored for leeds with 13 minutes to go. Now I'm a pessimist at times but I think the game was done at that point, which is why Powell took Webster off.

We had Ben Roberts Oliver Holmes and Larne Patrick missing yesterday , whilst our injury list isn't like wigan's we haven't been totally immune of them, also Zak wasn't 100% either.