With Messi you are talking about one piece of real high skill e.g. in RL 30 yards cut out pass for try - high risk, high reward. By its very nature prone to failure. Now let's compare eggs with eggs, Messi completing a simple pass to a team mate is an equivalent of McGuire's pass to Kirke or Watkins pick up from a kick through with no pressure. That is what I am talking about. Anyone who watched the warm up could see a lack of intensity/focus - when Vickery is kicking aimless bombs to no one it tells you something is wrong. I lost count of the number of dropped passes in the warm up.

Woods is 13 under par for two rounds this weekend - he is sometimes trying to hit a green 200+ yards away, he is not trying to catch a pass from two yards away. The performance of yesterday was not an off day, that is typical of the standard that Leeds have performed at over the past two season - neither Woods nor Messi have consistently delivered performances well below what is expected of an elite sportsman/men. The same cannot be said of this Rhinos side.

I keep saying this is entertainment nothing more - and in the entertainment business customers expect a certain standard of its top performers. If customers do not feel like they are getting value for money they will find other ways of spending it.

Can someone explain the criteria of McDermotts contract?

I am not asking for McDermott to go - I just want to see the quality of performance I saw against Melbourne on a more regular basis.

I fully agree with your comments and with others regarding entertainment etc .. I was merely giving my opinion on the OP demand for the coach to be sacked on the back of last night thats all .

The balance between Success and being entertainers is an hard act to perfect , just ask ask St Helens post 2006 .

...and that's the annoying thing. We know what this team is capable of and to compare last night's performance with the WCC and they're a million miles apart.

sal all fans want quality performances and on a more regular basis,after all this is the entertainment business,but due to the way that the play off system works at present we do not need to perform to this level on a regular basis unfortunately,this has been proved without a doubt these past 2 seasons has it not?

other sl sides like wigan and warrington have recently perfected the art of producing more quality performances for their demanding fans during the weekly rounds and have been rewarded with a shiny hub cap,but in doing so they subsequently ran themselves flat in the weekly rounds and had nothing left in the tank come play off time

i personally believe that we will see plenty more of these sub standard performances this season,but probably now more widespread across the board too as surely wigan and warrington must now realise that it's not how you start but how you finish

sal i am a season ticket holder too and one that shares your frustrations,i have often discussed this subject with the rhinos players when they have been in the stanningley club house and have been regularly told to judge them when the games that matter come around

under the current play off system they clearly have a point do they not?

I agree - but the season ticket sales are down year on year and this will continue if the team continue to put in performances like this on as regular a basis. It suggests to me the depth of the squad is not what it should be, so that begs a question as to where is the money going? With the revenue from games dropping that will only mean one thing cut backs on the playing and coaching - one thing is for certain the CEO is not going to take a cut.

Well tell that to the OP who said ''the person who should have been the future of our front row, Mr Burgess, was ripping up trees for Souths on Thursday''.

I presume he meant Luke as he is the former Leeds player out of the Burgess brothers.

Yeah because guitarists have 17 other guitarists trying to stop them playing their chords correctly .Comparing sportsmen making mistakes to musicians forgetting songs is one of the dumbest comparisons i've ever read/heard.

Sports is ALWAYS a gamble to spend money on, a boxing match could last 1 Round, a day at the cricket could be largely rained-off, the horse you've backed could fall at the 1st hurdle etc.

You would think the way some go on on here that they ALWAYS perform to a certain standard whenever they've played sports whether it be RL or something else.........I seriously doubt that though. Along will come the cry of ''but we aren't payed to perform'', but sorry, just because you're payed to play sports still doesn't mean you'll get it right everytime........but I guess in the workplace where you ARE payed you never make errors .

If you're determined that you MUST get some certain amount of value for your ticket then I suggest that you should avoid sport events, probably best the cinema too just in case the film you've heard so much about turns out to be rubbish.

I believe he was referring to George rather than Sam or Luke as he was the only Burgess that played last week for Souths that was also at Leeds.

God, 7 days in sport is a long time for some people's memories.

Reading through some of the posters and threads they've been quick to roll out the old and very tedious ''Leeds don't care about the regular season''.

Strange considering people were full of praise last week for the professional job we did going away to Saints, likewise.....
- Hudds were poor last week, good this one
- Cas put up a good fight this week, definately not this week
- Saints disappointing last week, very good this week
- Bradford very good last week, to unable to finish off 12 men
- Hull disappointing last week, very good this week

It happens, get over it.

But it seems to be spreading all over the league that if a team lose it MUST be because they know it doesn't matter because of the Playoffs, so explain other sporting events like......

2011/12 - Man Utd 1 - 6 Man City (this ultimately cost them the title)
2008 - Manly 40 - 0 Melbourne (in a GRAND FINAL match)
2012 - Rory McIlroy doesn't make the cut at one of the 4 Majors (US Open)
2010 - England win the Ashes by winning THREE tests with an innings to spare.
2007 - Even though they win Grand Slams in '05 & '08, Wales can't even get out of the group stage at the Rugby World Cup.
2013 - In a non-playoff league, Man City (already behind Man Utd by 9 points) put in a woeful performance to lose 3-1 to relegation contenders Southampton
2010 - Leeds 6 - 30 Warrington (CC FINAL)

All of these poor results even in 'critical' occasions show that bad results/performances happen in sport regardless of the importance. Seems to be more a lazy excuse from some RL fans to dismiss a defeat as 'not important' simply because of the stick they get from rival fans in defeat and to downplay the other team's good victory.

Some people shouldn't watch sport at all, they take it all far too seriously, like it actually means something in their lives, which is sad if it does (unless you're employed in said sport, in which case you get to sit in coffee shops laughing at your own supporters opinions).