Different type of player - Kirke is certainly more in the Bailey mould, if not quite as effective

Me too. Although there will be some revisionism we were in a minority. Many on here expressed a view that he was inferior to Burgess.

I stood in the numpties section tonight. Ablett, Kirke and especially Bailey were all crap. We should have tackled Matt King with his hair but my god, a solid hit into the chest of a Leeds player was met with cries for public execution. Oh, my favorite was when Wire scored thier 3rd... "Come on Leeds! You've gone off the boil. You're useless!"

I'm off back to the top next time. At least the numpties up there know about the game

oh and aparently Leeds were 6-0 down for ages because we were going down the middle all the time whereas they were throwing it about. Obviously field position isn't part of the gameplan now.

Anyway, I digress. Bailey was immense tonight. His workload was amazing and mainly all positive too. Leuluai had a couple of good spells in hisstints but looked out on his feet at 1 point. Ablett though was my MoM. He has great footwork, a big hit and does he lose any collisions? He was smashed on 1 occasion and still made 5 yards extra. He is my 1st name on the sheet at the moment and is the long term successor to the 13 jersey. I think he just got the better of Harrison on the future International loose stakes tonight. Harrison was thier nest though.

Oh and as for Kirke, I'm fully with Mr1 on this. Yes he had a decent work ethic tonight but was it overly productive? The frustrating thing was on a few occasions when the rest of the pack was on top he made good impact in the collision and really took it in but if he can do it then why doesn't he always try it?

Eastwood is a useless turd and should be sent back on the first plane home.

I'm waiting for the punchline... Or are you joining in on my numpty quotes of the night too?

No I hate him.

No really, get the punchline. The suspence is killing me!

No one's buying it

OooooooooOooooooooOooo...

Get her

I'm assuming you were in the numpties section on the 40m line nearest the scoreboard end then

funilly enough we normally stand about 10metres over towards the hw line but it was already fairly full when we got there. It's bliss too over there. Can't hear you s talking crap pretending to know about the game

bless

Ablett and Kylie were easily man of the match between them. You haven't mentioned Ablett.

Personlly I thought the forwards were a little lacking in the first half offensively, but really stood up in the second half. That said I thought our goal line defence was arguably the best it's ever been under McClennan, it was absolutely superb, which all the players played a part in.

I'll come clean (which I've been able to do since the umbrella treatment) I was the 'guest' Gareth mentioned and its my words he borrowed so here's my view of Kirke last night.

Many times with ball in hand he seemed to get his body position all wrong. As he approached the defensive line he became far too upright to make any sort of impact, as if he was bracing himself for the impact of the tacklers rather than looking to drive them back. If he were looking to offload then fine, but he wasn't. Net result is no extra yards and no quick play of the ball. Softcockery of the lowest order.

In the second half though he seemed to run more purposefully - much better body position and leg drive. He might not have got many quick plays still but at least he made the defenders work and squeezed out the extra yardage.

Defensively I've no criticism in terms workload but I might question if he hurts his opponents much in the tackle. Again, he seems a bit passive, which is dissapointing for a guy of his size.

Stats wouldn't show passivity in attack or defence. Case in point was one Gareth spotted in the second half where Kirke was driven back about 5m by (I think) Ben Harrison. The stats will say another completed tackle but that will hide what looked a real powder puff attempt. Mind you, I can recall the incident but not the tackles that preceded it so maybe it was his third on the bounce?

My view, as Gareth alluded to, is that he's a steady enough squad player but one who gets into the 17 more often than I'd expect.

That might very well be because I know feck all and Tony Smith and Brian Mclennan know significantly more. It might be because there's always an injury somewhere or other which allow him into the matchday squad. Or, it might be that coaches could see a role for a player who doesn't bring a whole lot of quality in what he does but is steady and gets through a quantity of work i.e. they recognise that not all players can produce consistent quality in the key requirements of their position all through their game time and that there's a compromise of including a player who shares the workload albeit without doing much damage to the opponents or causing a threat.

some good points rob. he is usually error free, doesn't miss much and is a steady player. a good reliable lad who won't be on big wages and won't let you down. as others have said bailey quite often hits and falls so kirke isn't the only one. i sometimes wonder what people expect of kirke. its obvious he is simply a reliable squad player who will do a job. nothing more or less

I'd have said Bailey's body position as he hits the defensive line is consistently better and as a result the average speed of a play of the ball off the back of it will be faster.

Spot on about wages vs quality - a real 'salary cap player'.