Look at the squad for last year and the high profile departure Buderus, Ali, contract renewals to the likes of Sinfield, Webb, Peacock, JJB these will all have been downwards given the length of the contracts. There will have been some increases for the likes of Ward, Watkins and Hardaker but their increases are likely to be less than the decreases.

If the Leeds squad is costing what the Warrington squad then GH needs to be taking a serious look at himself in the mirror.

That's fine - I just wondered if it was official or just what you had interpreted.

Wire will be in a similar position where the likes of Hodgson got less for longer deals. People like Riley, Ratchford, Higham, Harrison, Wood, Hill won't be on big bucks but are a huge part of what they do.

Pretty sure both hetherington and McDermott both said there was some room left in the cap to bring another player in.

Ratchford will not have been cheap a number of clubs were after him, agree re the rest.

I'm glad somebody speaks some common sense regarding Wire's squad and their wage spending....If you believe some of the rubbish you read on other forums (mostly blinkered Wigan fans), the likes of Ratchford and Higham are on massive salaries and Wire are giving illegal payments to all their squad in order to cheat the cap...

We were well beaten by a far superior side, no question about that.

To my mind, the differences between the two teams were sat in th stands. We missed McGuire but, more importantly, they have a coach who can organise a defence and form a game plan. We missed tackles, mis read plays, dropped the ball through panic play, gave away cheap penalties and lacked offensive structure. How many times did we move the ball to the fringes for there to be only one or two of our players facing three markers or drop the ball within their twenty?

Why did we persist in kicking to Monaghan's wing when Chris Riley had dropped more ball than one armed Frenchman the previous week? I appreciate that Ryan is good in the air but, BJB ain't exactly shabby.

Why is that Watkins, who is clearly lacking some defensive coaching, never receives any quality ball and the attack is set up in such a way that he never will?

Forget the players, in my opinion, they are good enough to have come a lot closer or to have won that game. They need to be better coached.

Who is the player

pm sent

It looked to me like a well-coached team against a badly coached one. Tvoc elsewhere talked about lack of structure, and it was glaringly obvious that we have almost none. No plan to stop opponents making massive yards up the middle (multiple men into the tackle and controlling it anyone?), and seemingly no idea how to cope with dummy runners near the line. No plan on attack within the opposition half at all. That's down to the coaching.

As for the players, well we now have a really good set of outside backs, but they look flat because we have the most ordinary pack imaginable. There's not a single forward that worries opponents and forces them to commit numbers to the tackle close to the opposition line through sheer physical presence, nobody with an offloading game worth mentioning, and none of our 'hardworking' forwards do much work off the ball at all. McGuire's ability to get the ball wide through his speed was missed, and Leeds didn't adjust to his absence.

The paucity of the side is probably spelled out on the bench. Nothing there at all. Instead of an Ali we had a hardworking prop, a big lad who seems very Chris Feather, an OK hooker and perhaps most bizarre of all is seemingly actually PLANNING to move one of your threequarters. Dumb doesn't even come close to what a waste of a bench spot that is. Nothing against Keinhorst - putting him in that position was plain stupid.

In the end people can talk about being brave all they want. We were hammered in the second half (23-8 with our points coming late) - very much what you'd expect to happen on the scoreboard when a better team gets on top of a poorer one.

No doubt people will expect a miracle comeback in the playoffs, but that Wire team was massively superior to us. I'll be stunned if we get near the Grand Final again this year.

One thing you learn pretty quickly on here, is that 99% of what you read, regarding player's salaries and things they are supposed to have said and done, is complete bull.

Until proved otherwise, I would go along with the reality that Wire do things within the laws of the game.....To suggest otherwise just makes people look very bitter and jealous....

thats a great most. sadly reaching wembley will keep BM in the job for another year.
i honestly expect nothing more than mediocrity next season

They will get near the Grand Final again. And by that, I mean an elimination semi final at the very least which is one game away from a Grand Final. Which teams are going to stop them? Hull? Huddersfield? Bradford? Catalan? Wakefield? Hull KR?

Catalan away isn't the gimme fixture you're making it out to be if they end up 4th and we're 5th