It's not just the penalties that cause this problem though it's also not respecting the possession when we have it.

The spiral started more with the cheap possession we turned over which then led to cheap penalties as we spent less and less time with the ball in hand.

We did give away a lot of cheap ball on Friday which exasperated the problem further but it’s not as easily fixed as ill discipline.

I completely agree.

We finally got our kicking game right on Friday night but we could'nt turn it into pressure as we gave stupid pentalties away that let the Wigan players march up the field untouched.

It can't be the refs fault if it happens every week, home or away and with all refs in Super League. There is a serious problem here that needs to be addressed asap!

We let teams back into games when we could close them out. Wakefield and Hull FC home and away recently are 2 that spring to mind. Ok, we won those games but points difference could cost us the Minor Premiership!

it seems to me that the worst offender re discipline is JJB - although I would be interested to see who's given away the most penalties. So maybe he should be dropped from the squad as a lesson to the others. If I m wrong about this apologies to JJB who I am sure always looks out for my comments.

Without stats (tvoc…) I believe our worst offender is Sinny!!!

I have no idea but it seems to me that some of the worst offenders are McGuire, JJB (like u say), Bailey and maybe Burgess (although I do love the way he is playing at the moment!)...oh maybe even Senior

Another thing, it was not going to be long before Smith got pulled up on the penalty he gave away. Every time he gets tackled he shrugs the player off with his elbows then immediately raises his arms to the ref! Hope he has learnt his lesson!

On Friday it was knock on (Senior), knock on (Senior), run into touch (Donald) on Leeds' first three sets of possession.

If you don't clear your half on the end of a completed set with a kick then you put yourself under needless pressure. If you don't complete any of your first three sets in a game then you're still on the coach.

McClennan's not stupid (?) so how did Leeds start the 2nd period. Burrow knocking on, on half way.

Leeds didn't concede a penalty until the 8th minute of the first half or until 14th minute of the second half but they'd turned over possession without getting to a kick three times by then in each half.

I think the penalties do flow from fatigue (as they did on Friday) and not completing sets on our terms plays a bit part in that also.

Interesting point and that backs up my view - which is counter to Gareth's - that its not the coach's over emotion that's a problem. If it were you'd expect penalties to be conceded from the outset - and they're not - and you'd expect a number of penalties for foul play to be high - and they're not.

The penalties for interference seem to have become an automatic response to perceived adversity by a number of the players. Its possible that that's the coach's doing - that he tells them to interfere and slow things down whenever the opposition seem to get a roll on and that they continue with the policy (and by inference defend it in post match interviews) despite conceding penalties because they believe in it. If so both the coach and the players are idiots for continuing with it as its clearly counter productive.

In 2007 Leeds had the 9th worst discipline in Superleague and won the Grand Final. Last year (under a new coach) Leeds again had the 9th worst discipline in the competition and again won the Grand Final. This year they have the second worst discipline.

I'm convinced this stems from the players not the coach. Its their arrogance and failure to dominate games in the way they feel they should be that causes the response. Two time champions justifiably feel they should be dominating games but probably can't maintain the mental intensity needed to do so for a 3rd year - this results in frustration.

Where the coach is maybe culpable is in not stamping it out but we're not privy to what is said to players and have no idea whether it can be changed without the team collectively being taken down a peg or two by a season of relative failure.

I'd have agreed with Gareth that Mcguire, after Friday, seemed an obvious candidate to make an example of - 4 penalties and without the excuse of fatigue that the forwards might reasonably claim - until I looked at his stats. He'd only conceded 5 in the previous 19 rounds.

You would be correct.

The top 10 offenders, with average penalties conceded per game are:

Kevin Sinfield 0.98
Ryan Bailey 0.85
Carl Ablett 0.71
Lee Smith 0.69
Luke Burgess 0.65
Jamie Jones-Buchannan 0.65
Danny Buderus 0.60
Brent Webb 0.56
Keith Senior 0.56
Jamie Peacock 0.55


That takes no account of game time and excludes Friday. Some interesting absentees as well as interesting inclusions.

The absence of Ian Kirke makes dropping Sinfield or Ablett difficult and, at present, its difficult to drop Lee Smith without playing another youngster.

The penalties near the end of the game (when admittedly the game was all over) were nothing to do with fatigue. Two I remember were McGuire not rolling away but thrashing around without attempting to get off Riddell, and Leuluai (IIRC) grabbing a leg as he went to marker, causing the Wigan player to stumble. Thos sorts of thing are nothing to do with fatigue. My perspective is more along the lines of petulance, as with Puig.

What could he do, Riddel is such a lump of lard, that when on top of him, mcguire couldn't get his hands or his feet on the floor to help him get off

Mclennan said after the game he didn't use Worrall as he wanted to keep his gamebreakers on the field to try and get us back into it. IMO this points to the fact Mclennan doesn't think Worrall is good enough to make a difference and points to a lack of depth of quality in the back row.

I didn't actually hear the comments about Worral, but there is a big difference between keeping game breakers on, and not experienced enough to play. Either was it seems like a bad game plan. We should try to spell our players so that we can have the game breakers on the field at the end if needed, maybe having more faith in someone like Worral to do a job earlier in the game would mean that the gamebreakers were in a better way late on.

Yes, Eddie asked him why Worral wasn't used and that was his reply. It was alarming imo. A real worry going into the playoffs. Suppose it depends on the Kirke and Bailey situations.