Wakey fan here who has not come tp gloat.
I just want to ask a genuine question, Watkins looked a shadow of his former self today, I know he's had a bad injury but he looks a totally different player. Was it a one off or is he suffering a massive loss in form.

Are you expecting top class performances at the moment? If so why?

It's a mystery mate. I think the injury has possibly finished him but I pray not.

I am expecting what I said Friday, don’t ignore the problems and change them. Two points or not.

It's hardly a mystery, he's coming back from one of the most serious injuries you can get. Sure, you recover psychically, but it can take months to recover mentally and to regain confidence. He's performing about as well as can be expected. Matt Diskin has said it took him a year before he was confident the injury wouldn't reoccur, and IMO, he was never the same player. Few are.

Some really interesting points here ref both teams. We didn’t play their reserves, we played a team with some reserve replacements, just like we have most of the season. We dominated the first half and lost out to 2 long distance tries. We played well and showed great promise getting the 2 tries. What I didn’t understand was not taking the 2 but heh, once again that comes back to haunt us. Tui was good the majority of the game but his criticisers will only point out his mistakes. His ball return was v good in general. Merrin was the rock and we are a much better team when he is on the field. A shame Wellington couldn’t have helped more but that happens. Many negative comments on this tag but we have to stop thinking when winning, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Other than Saints and probably Wire, every other team can beat each other as the scores show today and Friday. I know I’ll be in the minority but David F has to stay for minimum of 2 seasons - we are on a re-build and we have no right to expect to be up there all the time. Keep the faith

I'm all for finding the positives, but you lost to a team with no halves, 1 centre, their premier prop playing on 1 leg and a winger on debut who got MOM against you.

To "dominate" and still lose makes it even worse!!

Oh, and NO hookers.

I don’t think they did really “dominate” us tbh. Sure their attack was free flowing at times but Wakey didn’t really look like surrendering. I think Myler isn’t the answer for you guys really. He didn’t look that threatening at all. Crosby DID look threatening though...

Crosby, he’d have a job on

Dwyer is indeed Leeds' best player at the moment, but you can't structure a game plan around him solely.

I know Furner will get more stick, and I understand that, particularly in terms of poor effort, but I think Marty summed it up - we're soft and dumb as a team. Softness I do hold the coach accountable for - there's no excuse for lack of effort/poor technique in defence. But dumbness can't be solved by shuffling dumb players around or going through drills in training.

If you compare our squad to Sts and Wire, ignoring younger players its hard to make a case that anyone other than Hurrell and Merrin would get into their 17. What's really worrying is how few you could argue would be certs in any of the mid table teams when everyone is fit. Dwyer would get a game because he at least has a dig, but who else, hand on heart would walk into any other SL 17 bar London based on current form? Maybe Peteru?

Hopefully Ava and Crosby come into contention soon and we can at least stabilise the pack, but as Gotcha alluded, we have poor players across the park. Fixing this is going to take at least another two years, as even if we make the right recruitment decisions moving forward as we are going to be stuck with a bunch of duffers for some time.

Whilst I think our recruitment is probably done for his year and has focused on the pack, the absolute number 1 priority for me has to be a halfback who can lead the team around. Without that we'll continue to lose games we should win far too often regardless of who else is in the side.

Most of this.

Two games, and yes I know Easter, where over the two we have missed over a hundred tackles. That is not even championship standard, that is inexcusable.

Needs to be clear as well, Myler has missed nineteen tackles over those two games. In any other given time that is and should be droppable. Utterly horrendous reading.

By contrast Peteru over the two games didn’t miss one tackle.

Wanting to know how to fix issues, there’s a glaring problem there.

Why didn't we choose to kick the penalty at the end of the first half? Going in with a 2 point lead after trailing by 12 would have lifted the confidence surely. If Furner gave the instruction to roll on the pressure then he is clueless. A sorry situation when Trinity fans are feeling sorry for the once mighty Rhinos. A relegation battle awaits the club and many of the players haven't got the heart to fight for the club's SL future.