I'm not sure Burrow did start as sub to Lunt very often, if at all, although i'm not certain. Burrow was used from the bench more the season before to good effect.

You may be right, Burrow did start many games at half back then move to hooker.
Maybe we should revert to this & start with Burrow & Sinfiled with Mags on the bench or heaven forbid, Burrow at 7, Mags at 6 & Sir Kev at 13 with Ablett in the second row & Ward at Centre?
The permutations are endless, as are my ramblings.

I think your right he was used more off the bench in buderus last season, and to good effect

He sees plenty of ball. This is a poor excuse. Danny has not played well at all consistently for quite some time.

As for Burrow, McDermott appeared to have latched onto a useful tactic by starting him at 9 and moving him to 7 when Lunt came on last year. However, it is clear that McDermott has no faith whatsoever in McShane.

What 40/20? Why are you even debating something that (technically) didn't happen.



Correct.

30 yards would be pushing it but he could be expected to be roughly half that distance at that point in the tackle count where the opposition are contained in their own half. That enables him to move forward to join the defensive line if the ball goes to his side or retreat to head off a midfield break or attempted 40/20. The Leeds wingers do this most of the time in that type of situation, indeed there was an example of even Vickery doing this around the 31st minute IIRC.

A well placed kick can still be difficult to defend though especially one before the last tackle option.
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He did this on three occasions in 2012 - Bradford (MM - Won 37-22), Wigan (Home Lost 8-50) and Hull (Home Won 21-6)

That good effect in 2011 culminating in his unanimous winning of the Harry Sunderland award in the Grand Final while playing alongside a quality hooker - not in the place of one.

Looking at Burrow and McShane's Opta averages from this season makes interesting reading for those inclined to do such a thing - I'm guessing that wouldn't include anyone on the Leeds coaching staff.

Even Lunt had games were he struggled to get on. Against Saints at home he was an unused sub and in the playoff game against Wakey he (and Clarkson) only got brought on for the first time at the 70mins mark. When he did get good minutes (the next 3 playoff games) he played a crucial part.

I don't think we would've won either of the last 2 Playoff series with only the starting hooker playing, both times a 2nd hooker of the bench has been key.....so I think we need to find an option that works, and it might well IMO have to be different to previous options......

2011 = Traditional hooker starting (Buderus) then joined by Burrow
2012 = Burrow starting then joined by traditional hooker (Lunt)
2013 = Traditional hooker starting (McShane) then REPLACED by Burrow ????

IMO you want your potential gamebreakers on the pitch for as many minutes as possible. Having any of McGuire, Burrow or Sinfield spend significant minutes on the bench damages Leeds's chances of winning.

We will have to try something the three you mentioned are not getting any younger .

Hope to see singleton get some game time. And hope it's mistake free so he does not get pulled off never to be seen again. How is it our senior players can make errors but keep getting picked but any mistakes from the younger players and they are gone ! We need to start integrating our younger players or we will find ourselves rebuilding our front row and 6/7/9 all at once .

Having Sinfield play 6 but have to make many more tackles than he should is also damaging to Leeds' chances of winning IMO. And over the last 10-15 years SL has had many games won by the impact of a gamebreaker from the bench, for Leeds alone the following stand out in the bigger games.....
- Burrow 2011 GF vs Saints
- Burrow 2011 Playoffs vs Wire
- Lauitiiti 2007 GF vs Saints
- McGuire 2003 CCSemi vs Saints

Hell even James Roby won a Man of Steel from starting on the bench mostly and Lee Jackson around 1999 for us played key roles.

And it's about setting a platform to use your gamebreakers the best, introducing Burrow after 20-30 mins I think is a better way of using him, sometimes I genuinely believe some players can do more damage in 40/50mins than they can do in 80mins if you time and execute it right. Leeds aren't a team that start strongly usually and when we did against Bradford we didn't put the points on the board to show it even with all the gamebreakers on. It's about building the pressure, getting the field position, keeping the possession.....not just Burrow might duck under a lazy tackle from a dummy half run and break away. It also can play on the minds of the opposition that Burrow is still to be introduced into the action and that gives them something very worrying to think about and cope with........''when's it going to happen?''...''will it be a straight swap with McShane?''...''will he start darting from dummy half right away?''.

Gamebreakers can only usually do their job based on the hard work of the forwards. If these forwards are having to work harder in defence to compensate for a hooker who doesn't tackle in the middle and doesn't provide the crisper passing from the PTB then it effects their ability to put the gamebreakers into the positions to be gamebreakers.

Burrow from the bench would be the preffered option however I don't really rate mcshane.

I bet he's gutted!!

As I bet the coach is about your assessment of him and your pet name.

McShane is never going to iron out any flaws to his game with these cameo appearances for Leeds. He needs game time and a certain amount of trust in that he will come good.

The real argument could be has he had these already?

Another good performance from Achurch tonight. Plenty of work on D with some strong runs. Also Vickery looked to improve a little more again, although it still baffles me that at his age and at this level he has not been told to drop back like every other winger