I've enjoyed watching that from the days I fell in love with the sport. It just seemed so much faster. No messing at the PTB, players stood deep in attack so they hit the ball at speed. Oh well....

I agree the game was more entertaining then.

Careful there Jeff , your mask is slipping .

I've never felt so miserable as after that game. I was with three mates and we decided to drink ourselves happy. It didn't work. Two of the lads went home but me and my mate ended up in Foxes. Most of the Leeds team turned up. Apart from Lowes, who was thoroughly fed up they didn't give a $h1t. Bunch of to$$ers.
I got a job down in Surrey not long after and that was pretty much the last season I was a regular. That day more than any battering by Wigan was where I mentally gave up on Leeds.
Then Graham Murray arrived and game on again.

We started well in that game, Medley and Heron scored great long range tries. They just didn't believe in themselves enough to finish them off.

I think the rot started when Peter Jackson failed to find touch with a penalty. I might be mis-remembering though.

Somebody in the Leeds side that day was reputedly "saving themselves for training" rather than getting "stuck in".Wonder who that was?

Remember the uproar among some fans when Malcolm Reilly did a deal with Halifax and swapped Medley for Paul Dixon?

A fantastic swap deal, but oh boy did all the Medley fanboys burst into a long fit of over-dramatic, communal tear-shedding. Took them months (in some extreme cases, years) to get over it.

They were all then assimilated en-masse to later become the modern day fans of Super League and summer rugby along with all their offspring

O we are weee... O we are weee...

Well Medley did very well for us, but he was in a pack that contained Skerrett, Fairbank, Hobbs etc so he had people looking out for him. Barry Seabourne actually signed him to play centre. His pace was the difference for us on many occasions. He may not have been as tough a Skerrett or a Sorensen but not many were. Leeds had plenty of others in the pack that lacked that bit of devil. I can think that only Craig Izzard (on his brief stint) and Gary Rose (tough but limited player) had anything like it at leeds until Barrie Mac, Fleary and Farrell arrive.d

I think he may have been ok at Leeds with few tougher lads in the pack with him. Had Alan Rathbone not had his career ended on debut for Leeds he could maybe have given Medley the protection he needed.

Leeds might not have had the out and out thugs like a Fairbank or Skerret, but there wasn't really a lack of bottle - which is exactly what Medley had. Big Roy Powell for instance, while he is fondly remembered, he wasn't a typical hard man, and tended to avoid a scuffle, I certainly don't remember him starting any - but he didn't shirk taking the ball up when it got tasty - he just quietly got on with his job. Medley was a hider....

On Powell, his lack of a nasty streak was probably the thing that stopped him being one of the best in his era. He's another that would have gone very well in the modern day.

Medley "a hider"? I think you're overdoing it a bit there. He was a back being played in the forwards IMO. Take your point about Powell. Used as a sub Medley was a gamechanger and shouldn't be dismissed.

I do think Leeds lacked "bottle" at times. Northern used to regularly come out on top back in the late 80s and early 90s principally due to our pack getting on top - we had very few decent backs at that time. I happened to be watching a few you tube videos recently of Leeds versus Widnes during that era and the Widnes pack invariably got on top of Leeds too. That 37-4 and the 24-0 not to mention the 0-38 game at Headingley being obvious examples. All long after Medley had gone.

I agree. Medley was nowhere near the softy some people thought. What he was was one of the most talented running forwards of his generation. I have not seen another forward score tries from running back a kickoff, Medley did it multiple times. I don't know what people are talking about regarding his tackling, I saw him put huge hits in. With Roy Powell alongside him in the ack row you had a perfect partnership.
Was glad when we signed Dixon, but gutted it was at the expense of Medley. I seem to remember he had a bad neck injury on the GB tour and ended up coming home. Reilly didn't like his attitude to some biff in PPN and that was the death of his Leeds career.
In reality it was another example of a club that couldn't develop talent and thought you just bought it with a cheque book.

Like I said, he was an athlete, and ran great lines... And absolutely provided some great impact off the bench for Northern, scored some great tries and often played well against Leeds.

But I'll stand by my call that he was soft - certainly compared to the forwards of his era. Nowadays that wouldn't be the case.

Depends wether you like watching forwards smash down the pitch scoring 80 metre tries or sticking an elbow in someone 's face after the ball has gone.