Saints will have to plenty more questions to answer.

Everyone in the ground knew Watkins was going to blast through the attempted tackles of Percivil and Swift.

I agree but I'm not a saints fan so I will leave the entertainers to worry about that one.



Percivils attempt was shocking, still not sure what he was even trying to do grabbing at the collar

Both tries conceded at the weekend were as a result of poor reads, the first by McGuire and the second by Sutcliffe.

Individual errors are going to happen, and good teams are going to take advantage of them and exploit them. The key is keeping them to a minimum and learning from them. Something Watkins appears to have done quite nicely this year.

Especially when teams are or should be mercilessly targeting these alleged weaknesses, apparently.

That term was only used in relation to a potential future career in the NRL - but of course you realised that already.




I don't recall that discussion but I do recall another we had re Hall's defence around that time and how it was Moon at fault.

Was an interesting debate as I recall.

Oy, the Approaching Milestones thread is over there ------------------->



My favourite thread on the site.

It's been a quiet period for approaching milestones - a frantic one for passing them.

Had a lot on this last year but hopefully will find some time soon to kick it back into life.

What was this then?

It appears to be an example of not using that specific term.

No worries, tvoc. I'm looking forward to the results, when you get a spare moment or two.

It appears to be a perfect example of you sprouting your now customary negative drool and it being found to be agenda garbage.

The negative drool was to highlight a weak area in Watkins game and praise the coach for introducing a plan to help address it.

The only thing 'found' thus far was in reference to the World Cup game V Australia - where when left to defend one man in he was still on occasions prone to making rash individual decisions.

Interesting, did Brian McDermott tell you this personally that this reasoning was behind Watkins apparent move to 4th man in?

Seen as both Sinfield and Watkins were averaging 19 tackles a game in 2012 and so far in 2014 Sinfield is leading Watkins 244 (27 avg.) to 155 (17 avg. iin the tackles made depart then I dare say you're over exaggerated you're claims that Watkins defends 4th man in.

Sure you'll find occasions he does (drop-outs in particular due to Sinfield taking them I've noticed) but if you think he's doing 17 tackles a game from mostly the 4th man in I don't think will hold up.

I tend to watch the game to gather information rather than trying to interpret others subjective views as represented by Opta.

It has been noticeable that Watkins has been moved infield to fourth man in by the coach (that was the formation on the opening defensive set on Saturday) in a way that it has not been noticeable on the opposite flank with the other Leeds centre. In truth that happened to accomodate the starting half-backs on one flank allowing the starting hooker to occupy the other hide defender spot on the left and I accept there is a certain amount of flexibility between the three on the right (Watkins, Sinfield and even McGuire) to interchange.

For the opening St Helens try the ball initially moved away from Leeds' right side unit so they tracked left as they should, the ball is switched back by Roby to St Helens left and Achurch switches direction as he should - Watkins hesitates then commits inside to Achurch's man which was a mistake - Sinfield has Soliola covered and on this occasion it's McGuire who does 'a Watkins' flying in on the wrong man entirely (Soliola) when they should as a unit have been sliding out right.

Others may take a different view (while some it appears would rather we just focus on the positives - and there are plenty of those with Watkins) but if the coach isn't analysing what went wrong for that score and fixing it up then Leeds will continue to concede needless points.

Well at least we've not conceded too many needless points if the SL superleague defensive stats are to be believed.
The stats could of course be erroneous.