I just don't get this cup final draining us as others are claiming. the saints game yes but the other two? seriously?

I think it's a lot more to do with injuries we've had than Wembley hangover.

Not having your 2 first choice hookers is going to affect any team. We haven't been able to get the toll on in attack and make the big metres, which means we're working harder in defence. I'm sure that if we had Aiton and Burrow fit we'd have the LLS wrapped up

I think it's a bit of both. We obviously peaked mentally and physically for the final. Having built up a lead we probably sacrificed some intensity in the games after.

We have also had injuries to key people. Whilst Hall and briscoe are excellent you could take them out and it would not affect how we pay so much, but we are currently without 3 main pivots, and our main organiser is having to go into dummy half. Not to mention the affect on defense that losing aiton has had

I think we need two trusted hookers in the squad. Proper hookers who defend the middle and distribute effectively. For a club of our status to potentially derail our best season in ages because of 1 player getting injured is not good.

I agree. Having one hooker and a small half back who can spell him at dummy half is just not a model any coach should think is adequate.

So what is your theory then?

no idea, but I don't believe it's mental tiredness because of winning a final, in which we never got out of second gear. I fully understand the saints game, possibly catalan but not that abject rubbish v cas. my opinion is the forwards are mostly old and/or big and not mobile. they've simply run out of legs. peacock was appalling last two games. he's nothing left in the tank.also we are paying for being mostly injury free. saints have a lot of fresh players due to a mid season injury crisis.
i'm hoping a few days off will recharge a few batteries and they have three big games left in them.
I think if we win on Friday, and I believe we can, then with the scent of old Trafford in their nostrils they are capable of winning the GF. however for that to happen they must have a home game in the semi's

The forwards are mostly old line is garbage. Yes we all know how old Peacock is, Leuluai too but it's not like he plays big minutes and he was somebody who didn't start his season until around the mid-point. The rest are of various ages, but not "too old"

look at the minutes they have played. most have been injury free. and people like Delaney have played far too many minutes because we haven't had sufficient cover in the second row. he is 29 and looks 39 at the minute

No, as usual I'm saying what I said. That they will have tried to peak for the Cup Final....that was in response to your "but the final was easy" point. Trying to downplay reaching Wembley and the effect it will have had because of the oppositions performance. Might not have been the toughest physical encounter but Hardaker, Watkins and Burrow wouldn't have gotten injured if they'd have been sat at home watching two other teams play in the final instead. Ward, Delaney and Ablett still put in huge shifts that day that their bodies would've felt for days afterwards.

He missed the previous two before Wembley. Delaney always looks knackered out on the field, just like Peacock does. Hell its the same way they look after the 10 mins of the opening game of the season.

I do not pretend to have the answer either and Mac looked equally baffled as the poor performance too. I do have a few theories though. Form is an elusive state which can come and go without warning. In professional sport the mental state is as important if not more so than the physical one and can quicken or slow down the reaction time to make the difference to good and bad form IMO. Because we "never got out of second gear" at Wembley should therefore not have effected our post final physical performances.

Indeed in all three defeats we have made considerably more tackles than our seasons match average (+80 av per defeat approx) We also made more metres and carries than our season average but crucially missed more tackles (+18 per defeat) and approx double the errors per match too. So if were just physical exhaustion I would have thought our tackle count would be lower and not higher. Also a word in JP's defense - while not at his best he still made 42 tackles, 163 metres in 20 carries so it is a bit unkind to suggest he was "appalling" or that he has "nothing left in the tank"

Therefore we should not underestimate the effects of mental tiredness. There is the tough mental build up to a Wembley final and the post match emotion draining effect particularly for the winners who will quite naturally switch off mentally having achieved their goal. To then try and regain the mental build up for the next tough league match against top rivals is a very difficult task as many many previous Cup winners have discovered. If you lose this next match then momentum is lost, confidence takes a bash as does form.

Add to this some serious injuries losing Aiton, Sutcliffe, JJB for the season thereby restriction our options when we incurred further injury with Burrow missing for all of the 3 losses since Wembley and Watkins, Hardaker and Keinhorst missing for two of theses defeats you have big problems to fix things. These injuries led to a shortage of front line players to cover hooker and half back for three tough and tricky fixtures which saw the opposition in all three matches produce seasons best performances. All in all a recipe for falling off the horse.

Without doubt the loss of first Aiton and then Burrow caused the biggest problems. With no Sutcliffe to call on, and our academy hooker seemingly having regressed sufficiently so as not to be considered, meant disruption which ever way you look at it.

Therefore for the drop in performance to have effected almost the whole side at the same time I would say mental tiredness has to be a major factor. Much will depend on getting our injured back on the field particularly Sinfield and Burrow if we are to have a strong finish. But this set of players do have experience and usually can be relied upon to show mental toughness when it counts so I still live in hope.

Australian legend Ray Price was the same. He always looked knackered yet he was like the Duracell bunny. He could play all day.

I agree with Tad in that I think only the Saints game can really be down to a Wembley hangover.

But I also agree with Printer in that I don't think it's age or tiredness that's the issue.

I think it's that the combination of injuries we've got is very unfortunate for the way in which we were playing and for what made us so good.
A lot has been made of our back line (and rightly so) but our game this season has, in my opinion, really emanated from hooker. Aiton's work from dummy half has been absolutely brilliant this season and our entire team has played off what he was doing.

Whether it's a few steps then pass, a simple pass from DH, or a wide run across the pitch, Aiton got us moving forward and our entire attack just fitted in with what he was doing. Cuthbertson and Peacock were running off him close to the play the ball. Sinfield and McGuire were waiting in the 2nd phase to link the attack. And the backrows and centres then ran off the halves or directly off some of Aiton's runs.
Now that we've lost that that means our attack just isn't anywhere near as fluent. And against the better teams all it takes is that half-second mis-timing to blunt your attack.

We've also missed Aiton's defence. Not really for any big hits or anything but with often playing Leuluai, Peacock, Cuthbertson and Garbutt they're all very very big blokes. Aiton was the guy in defence, because he was in the middle, who could help these blokes out in defence and avoid them getting stepped around. I'd go so far as to say those 4 are probably the combined biggest set of props in the league. And without a mobile, workhorse defender in the middle they're getting exposed.

It's a difficult situation because if we play Sinfield at hooker with an extra forward on the pitch we tighten up the defence but really blunt the attack.
If we play Lilley or Burrow at hooker we improve the attack but leave us exposed in defence.

I'd be tempted to go with Lilley starting at 9 with Burrow at 14, but I don't think we can go with such a big pack.
I understand why this happened v Cas with JJB, Achurch, Sutcliffe & Keinhorst injured we didn't have much choice. But I think we've got to leave one or 2 of the 5 props out and have some more mobile second rowers in there, especially as neither Delaney nor even Ablett are that mobile laterally.

If fit I'd go with this team v Hudds:

6. Sinfield
7. McGuire

8. Cuthbertson
9. Lilley
10. Peacock
11. Ablett
12. Delaney
13. Ward

14. Burrow
15. Garbutt/Leuluai
16. Singleton
17. Keinhorst/Walters