Leeds v St Helens, Monday 20th May, kick off 7.45pm

Quote: SmokeyTA "Think I watched a different game to a few people last night. I thought it was a really good game, I though for the large part we played pretty well, made some silly mistakes and gave away some silly penalties but we didn’t do too bad. I thought Sinfield was really good, lots of short little inside balls which made good metres, bar one kick which was an attempt at a low percentage play, he had an absolutely outstanding kicking game, Hall, Watkins, Moon did what was expected, didn’t stand out but weren’t poor, JJB was as dynamic as he always is and gave away a couple of stupid penalties as he always does. Delany played well but looked like he was in pieces.

No problem whatsoever with Hardakers first error, went for the big play, very nearly made it, I would have liked to hear Ganson’s explanation for that one, I would have seen it as grounded, tackle complete, knock-on by Hardaker and Laffranchi, a flop by laffranchi, all before I could see it as a try, but It’s not important in the scheme of things, and I would rather a young potential superstar like Hardaker continued to try the spectacular than for him to play it safe every time. We have won 6 championships in 9 years by never being afraid of trying something, lets continue that. The second error deserves a clip round the ear though. He bottled out of the challenge and let himself and his team-mates down.

Thought the refereeing left a little to be desired though, not putting any blame on him, or saying his decisions had a great effect on the game but I thought the ruck was a complete lottery with decisions seemingly made at random, and twice when saints were under pressure he stopped play and pretty much allowed the defence to rest, including one bizarre situation where leeds were 5th and last on the saints 10 with a quick PTB and he stops it for a good three or four minutes to allow Howarth to receive treatment and rejoin the defensive line. I think that needs to be looked at, otherwise id simply tell every tackler to lay down at the PTB when the opposition are near the line and wait for the delay and the defense to re-set. He also seemed to let a long time pass between a scrum being formed and it being put in without stopping the clock, including having a chat with the players a couple of times. As I say, not really a comment on the game or either teams performance but just some observations on the ref.'"

Yep think we must have been watching a different game last night.
I think the only thing I agree with in your comments is that Watkins did what was expected apart from keeping his foot off the whitewash.
Maybe I will give you the comment about Moon as well at a push.