Lowes is going to be announced as Buderus' replacement. He meets the present recruiting criteria of has beens, at the expense of youth.

Best start looking for a new club now Liam .... The present CEO and coaching staff prefer to have youth grow ever more discontented and / or ship them off to Wakefield or Harlequins ...

To be fair, you're generally more discontent than the youth themselves.

How's the Hardaker For Prop campaign coming on?

So I take it you're happy with the current recruiting ( Kirke, Lleualai, Webb ... And the piece de la resistance, Snore ) ... ?

Depends what else we do. I think Moore's a decent (and very under-rated) player, and provided it's not as well as Griffin, and thus leaves room for Kyle Amor to come back, I'm not unhappy with it. Happy with Kylie and Webb, you can't have a whole team of youths and props are notoriously better with age and we have a very young back 5 as it is. Kirke I would not have re-signed but you can't win them all.

I reserve judgement on this year's recruitment until I've seen what happens with new centres and possibly hookers. So far so meh.

steve pitchford a great leeds player,just retired from knaresborough wmc and now living in scarborough allways has time to talk to anybody about his rugby days

Go on then, who should Leeds have targetted that other teams have already signed for 2012?

Talk me through your valuable insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the alternatives.

Don't just sit in the back seat complaining about how the bus is being driven - take your turn behind the steering wheel.

Who's rattled your cage ? Ask me nicely and I MIGHT do



( actually it's more a case of why sign Kirke when you have the superior and younger Ambler; Lleuali when you have the superior and younger Amor; Webb when you have the superior and younger BJB ...and finally effectively swap Llauititi out of the squad for the inferior - yet with no age advantage - Moore ? )

Is it a possiblility. that this is all about the ability to have a few shocking games?

Amor, and Ambler. Two young lads. IF, IF, they have a game against say Wakey, and they get smashed to pieces by say... Korky.

What does that do to their confidence? Do they shy away from serious confrontation for a while? Do they need some confidence putting back by playing in the Academy again for a bit? Do they need taking off to let an old bugger take the heat off?

The olduns, they can have a stinker and it doesn't phase them. Temperament, and durability of resolve. Something the younguns learn from them.

BJB? Well, we saw what happened to Mathers when he had a few poor games, and Smith. Confidence suffers, performance suffers. But they had one of the Wigan greats to mop up for them, and bring them on.

God forbid we had all the eggs in the basket of youth and they turned out not to be of sufficient quality.

No, old dogs and young pups, blended together.
Every time.

never heard of pitchford


Re old dogs and young pups

That would be good but ive seen on another post that we havent given any youngsters a debut in the first team since 2008 and with Mcshane and Smith banished to under 20s its like there going backwards under this coaching regime

Ignorance is bliss.

Steve 'the bionic barrell' Pitchford, Lance Todd trophy winner from the 1976/77 Challenge Cup Final.

At the time only the second Leeds player to have received the award.



I hope you don't believe everything you read on here. Some of it is garbage.

I'm fairly sure I remember that Singleton lad getting a debut since 2008..... that only took me about 5 seconds to come up with, nad I never see any games.

I therefore pronounce that statistic to be, in the words of Professor Yaffle, fiddlesticks and flapdoodle.

Is the 'since 2008' to be taken as including any part of or excluding all of that particular year/season?

In the meantime here are the Leeds Academy products to have debuted in the SL 1st grade: (In debut date order)

2008: Luke Burgess, Ben Kaye, Danny Allan, Ben Jones-Bishop, Kallum Watkins, Joe Chandler, Michael Haley

2009: Paul McShane, Dane Manning

2010: Tom Bush, Chris Clarkson

2011: Brad Singleton, George Elliott

Leeds' other debutees over the same period:

Simon Worrall, Eric Anselme, Danny Buderus, Jay Pitts, Brett Delaney, Greg Eastwood, Michael Coady, Kyle Amor, Luke Ambler, Ben Cross, Weller Hauraki and Zak Hardaker.