What a e first half that were. Hope the 2nd better.

any scores, updates ?

6-14

Attendance?

Just under 11.000.

What a great crowd that is.

Well felt a bit cheated from that. Wakey thoroughly deserved their win, showing far more desire. Only a friendly and early to season, but we did look poorly prepared in comparison.

Too early to judge as very early, but biggest fear for me all along has been halfbacks, and more importantly captain. That problem was massively highlighted today, so I hope just an hiccup.

Lilley tried really hard and certainly looked our best option. Limited ball Briscoe got he always looked good and powerful. Goulden tried very hard and ran well, but very greedy at times. As for rest can't really say much to write home about, although you would never have put Smith as the novice out there, looked more than comfortable,

Absolutely the worst conditions for our type of rugby, and the team undercooked but couldn't judge too much about our season's prospects from today's game. Sutcliffe, Watkins and Hardaker should make a big difference, as well as different second rows instead of Achurch/Walters, be they Delaney, Ward, JJB or a new signing.

Wakefield on the other hand you can tell have recruited well and have a solid first 17 as well as imo the best coach in the league. They certainly won't come bottom this year and if they have luck with injuries could make the 8.

Think someone forget to tell the lads it wasn't a sunny day in July so not suitable for our preferred style of play.

Terms of personnel not much to learn. My worry for the last few weeks has been whether the squad as a whole have had enough time to recover both physically and mentally from last season's effort. With the game against NZ two weeks after the GF and the squad enjoying last week at the SPOTY awards it does feel like we'll be a few steps behind the rest of SL in terms of preparation at this point.

Our whole pre season is geared for peaking for the WCC

But with the experience we had out there today a very disappointing performance all the same

Wakefield defence was pretty good and their kicking game was a massive difference, especially in the first half as ours was none existent as was McGuire all game and Burrow for the first 50-60 mins.

I thought we would have given Baldwinson more than just the last 9 minutes

Golding was rightly adjudged the MOM for us and Garbutt was his usual self and Singleton tried hard as well and I thought Achurch also had some decent moments and was given lots of minutes

Falloon knocked out twice with his front on jump into the tackle technique so hard to judge him as I bet in his 2 spells he only had 10 mins combined

Galloway had a few half decent runs and odd good tackle but lost the ball (or was adjudged to have) three times in all so not the greatest debut but the conditions were dire, especially first half.

Let's hope there is a lot more to come from him as the first impression he left today was more Ben Cross compared to the immediate impression Cuthbertson made in the same game last year

The plodder Finn ran the show for Wakey with a great kicking game in the conditions

A well deserved win for Wakey and on that plucky showing they should/could avoid finishing bottom

Today we were poor, no other word for it really.

That said, take it in context. First game of the new era, terrible conditions, England players missing, ward, Delaney, jjb, sutty and mullally out injured and its just the first game of preseason.

Golding was good and got mom. Actually thought all of the outside backs were ok. As has been said, the biggest issue was the halves. Mags never turned up and if that continues through pre season that's a huge worry. At this point though I'd chalk it up to an off day.

The forwards were generally solid with garbutt and singo doing well. Falloon looked like a no nonsense hooker though is clearly a few brain cells lighter after today. Galloway was the biggest disappointment for me. Never threatened to break a tackle and couldn't hold the ball - though he tackled well. Again, chalk it up as just one bad game but I don't want to be seeing many more like that.

Hats off to wakey. They were more enthusiastic and organised. Finn moved them around well. They know they need to start the season well to get confidence and they looked in good shape.

I never go to friendlies (live too far away), but...

On McGuire - didn't he get slated on here after last years boxing day game?

On Galloway, he's probably rarely, if ever, played in those kind of conditions

Positives for me were Golding & Lilley look every bit ready for the next step in their respective development i.e regular 1st team RL.
Garbutt and Singo were very strong for us and lead from the front.
However 6 & 7 very poor until we moved Lilley to 7 i lost count how many times we lined up for a set move and RB ran it solo when it blatantly wasn't on and conditions dictated he'd never be able to get the pace and step needed for his darting runs from DH let alone a set defensive line who only had to be paitent enough to watch him run up his own arris!
Galloway was poor imo id hoped for a bit more from an experienced pro with his CV but given the"bigger picture" too early to be too judgemental.
Finally i like the idea of giving young lads game time so i was a bit peed off Baldwinson ,Smith didn't get longer or that Oledski/Jordan-Roberts failed to appear at all.
For Wakey as has been said well deserving of their win well organised and took their chances although a bit too premature to be hailing B. Smith the best Coach in the League or that they won't finish bottom imo.

I know Leeds were missing Hardaker and Watkins but Sutcliffe was the miss for me.
Leeds had flashes but no real direction.
Our newly organised defence was able to run everyone down.

With him and assuming McGuire steps up at 7 the team could be very different.
Not sure how the WCC is going to go though. Could be tough going.

Plodder or not Finn makes a big difference to our team.
Good start for us but that's all. Long way to go yet.

Wish people would stop banging on about Sutcliffe being the saviour. You (we) will all realise before long what a huge miss Sinfield is going to be. GH should have gone balls out for Widdop. Mags can't do it on his own. Lilley is one for the future. Sutty is not a half