I thought Ward went well, though not MOM - a monumental defensive effort, and plenty of his tackles have a bit of 'sting' in them.

Cuthbertson went well and Parcell looks the business. His distribution is very smooth and reliable, defence is good and the only consistent threat in attack we have are his scoots from a quick ptb.

Watkins looks half dangerous when given the ball with a bit of space, but for some reason he won't come looking for work and impose himself on a game, and the team criminally under use him. We'll really struggle against a team like Wigan or Warrington who'll kill the speed of the play the ball, and we have zero ideas how to create space once the defensive line is set.

Sutcliffe looks more and more like a free roaming, running loose - he certainly ain't a 6 or 7....

The big issue is we look like a team of absolute plodders - the forwards have plenty of effort, but they're all relatively slow and low impact. Other than Parcell, there is no point of difference.

Going for 2 was wrong in every way !

We needed field position
They were down to 12 men
It did not put us a further score in front
Sent out the wrong message
Was totally against what we had done earlier

Yet ultimately along with the DG won us the game so not quite wrong in every way!

Imo we are still trying to adjust to losing JP both in sharing the work rate & we miss an old school enforcer.
The likes of Mullally Ormanroyd & Baldwinson need longer minutes to give em any chance of adjusting & imo uts way too early & harsh to write either of them off.
Singleton does the tough stuff but isn't a line breaker Galloway is very much the same so Cuthbertson has to up his work which leaves less opportunity for his off-load game.
For me id put Ward back at 13 & give him the extra pivit role we al know he can play rather than the extra prop there.

Going for 2 did not cost us the game but had we not gone for it nobody has any idea how the game would have gone.
Sutcliffe's DG on the stroke of half-time was brilliant & his 40-20 kick took away any chance that Leigh had of winning the game.
For that he should be applauded.
What I constantly find irritating is when either of JJB or Ablett - who otherwise had excellent games - gives away stupid penalties through messing around at the PTB.
They just seem incapable of getting that out of their system.
Personally I thought we looked much better when McGuire came on, other than knocking on from a daft pass from JJB, (forced by their defence?) he had little chance in the second half due to our continual failure to hold on to the ball.
Finally,I fail to see how the ref didn't at least refer the Mitch Brown try to the video ref, looked like a clear case of obstruction to me.
At least we went home with 2 points.

I agree Parcell played well on attack (and defence) and both he and Burrow achieved similar things on attack. Both had a try assist, both made a clean break, both made an offload, both made similar meters per carry, Burrow made one more tackle bust could have had a try when he backed up Hall if the pass had been better and he was off for most of the second half when we looked rudderless.

I agree with most of your post but would point out JJB and Ablett gave away just one penalty each the same as Ward, Parcell, Cuthbertson and Walters and some of those were just as irritating. In the case of players like JJB who are usually first into the tackle they are then last up and they cop the penalty if the other tacklers are slow up. Also with refs allowing o their sides a long wrestle it has to be said some of our tacklers sometimes allow the opposition to PTB too quickly.

My point is that Ablett & JJB are serial miscreants, the others may become the same in time but as the senior players I expect better. We know they do this & I suspect so do refs so they are looking for it.
That may be unfair but I suspect it goes on.

I'd like to see us move away from the 'battering ram' type LF and have either Sutcliffe or Ward there as a ball playing loose. Cutherbertson has sort of been doing this but I think he should just play his natural game - carting it forward and looking for the offload. Sutcliffe at 13 would take the pressure off him in the game management side of things which he's inconsistent with at the minute and allow him to do what he does best which is poking his nose through with the ball and supporting half breaks. Our prop rotation can then be Cuth, Garbutt, Singo and JJB without having to have the extra one at loose.

You are spot on regarding the brown try, I think the reason the ref did not go to the screen was our apparent acceptance of the try. If sinfield had been on the field, most definitely he would have asked for the decision to be verified.

^^
This entirely.
I was shouting at the old fella (Rhinos supporter) in the crowd who had his 2 fingers up (in a nice way!) imploring them to go for goal, to "sit the f*** down"

along with the DG'"

My four props from what is available short term would be, Garbutt, cuthbertson, Singleton and Ormondroyd. I liked the way Ormondroyd attacked with real pace and intent when he ran with the ball last night. It was only a little cameo (as it will only ever be while McDermott is coach), but I would give him another chance against Salford based on that. Garbutt seems to divide opinion, but he would be the player I would want carrying the ball out from our try line when we are under the pump. We really do struggle to make metres from our pack, and he is the only one that doesn't get smashed back when the game is at the highest tempo. Cuthbo did well last night, and I think he needs to be used more as a prop due to our deficiencies in that area. Singleton gets a place for me because we have such little quality there, but despite his wholehearted efforts I still don't think he's a prop.

If any team is looking capable of scoring with 6 tackles inside the opposition 20 it's a tough call to go for the 2. Leeds attack is so predictable and pedestrian that we should be going for the 2 every time at the moment.

Well if that's the case we might as well all give up ,because at that stage with a repeat set of six , Leigh down to 12 and field position vital going for 2 was nonsense

I think that what happened at saints last week had a massive influence on our going for the 2 points in this game.
I agree that until we are in a massive winning position in any game this season we should always go for 2 points if the kick is in a reasonable position.

The caveat there is that the kick has to be under the posts or there's no point taking it.

Also, if we do run it and score a try out wide then it's likely only to be 4 points not 6, so you have to be sure of scoring the try more than 50% of the time for running it (from under the posts) to make sense.

Having a decent goalkicker is so important.

Swinggg low sweeeet chariots..and all that



Joking apart, you make a good point and grinding out wins built on a solid defence in low scoring games does appear to be our best chance of winning games right now.

I'd be happy with that. If the 4th prop there's no reason it shouldn't be Ormandroyd or Baldwinson imo as both still have development in them. Also really liked the way Ormandroyd carried the ball in.

Have to disagree on Singo. I think he's started the season really well.

Judging by his performance in a team full of strangers in Championship Round 1, your best half back is currently on loan at Bradford for a month.

I wouldn't disagree although with the amount of defending we seem to be doing, compounded by the difficulty we have making metres, giving the opposition a kick off deep into our half immediately puts us back under the cosh. Particularly when we squander possession like we did during last night's second half.

I thought we won. Definitely said we won on Breakfast this morning.