Confidence is growing that we are arriving at a concensus of apparent Leeds fail.

Championship/Grand Final, tick
Challenge Cup, tick
Premiership, tick
John Player/Regal Trophy, tick
Floodlit Trophy, tick
Lancashire/Yorkshire Cups, tick

IIRC the stats also show Wigan have never beaten Sheffield Eagles in a major RL cup final

Championship Finals, but considering Leeds 3 championship finals involved beating Warrington in 1960/61, Castleford in 1968/69 and St Helens in 1971/72, we can rule that out.

Leeds won the Players No.6 Trophy in 1974/75 beating Salford.
Leeds won the John Player Special Trophy in 1983/84 beating Widnes.
Leeds won the Premiership Trophy in 1974/75 and 1978/79 beating St Helens and Bradford Northern respectively.
Leeds won the BBC2 Floodlit Trophy in 1970/71 beating St Helens.

That's it... I think.

Hudds managed to get a monkey off their back this year.

As did Warrington

I said elsewhere that Kirke upped his work rate and the quality of his work. However, lets temper this praise shall we. 8 drives people. 8 drives. I know that is a good "effort" from the cowardly lion but it's stuill only 8 drives.

I think you're giving him too much praise! At least one of those drives was a dodgy offload that fell into his hands whilst he was napping behind everyone else on the Cas line.

Who was at fault when he spilled that ball close to the line late on in the second half? Him or a certain Aussie hooker that provided the pass?

I thought his 1st half stint in replace of JP was vital, same goes for Bailey. Hudson and Chase were flying out the tackles in that set trying to get on top of Leeds but that pair really stood up.

I agree with TVOC.

Its been causing me much consternation. My brain hurts.

I'll go old skool and blame Jamie Mathiou.

League Express have Opta stats for the game which show Kirke as having 7 drives for 61m and 18 tackles with no misses. By way of comparison Bailey had 13 drives/97 metres and 20/0 on the tackle count.

Then you perhaps have to question Opta's ability to count to 8 in that case. I keep a track of Kirke in the televised Challenge Cup games in the unlikely event that Kirke becomes an item for discussion on the forum.

I counted 8 occasions he took the ball in and was tackled in possession (+ the one for the knock on.)

As ever while everyone accepts what Opta outputs I question just how accurate they are.

If anyone is interested, here are Kirke's carry stats:

1st spell, on 29 mins - off 51 mins (22 min stint, 7 carries 69 metres)

30:25 - 6 mt
31:55 - 9 mt
33:00 - 5 mt
35:00 - 22 mt
40:10 - 7 mt
46:20 - 10 mt
49:00 - 10 mt

2nd spell, on 68 mins - off 76 mins (8 min stint, 1 carry 12 metres)

74:20 - 12 mt

Total, 30 min, 8 carries 81 metres

(Interestingly if you ignore the drop-out return on 35 min (although I've no idea why you would) we come close to a consensus so you have to wonder have they mistakenly given those metres to another player? What .... surely not, however people may recall last season when Kirke was erroneously credited with a Rob Burrow 40/20 in one of the many WTF Opta calls.)

Classic Bailey - ripping it up Mutha's !!!