Agreed it's a strange one. Should we risk the wrath of a penalty or be careful???

TBF too often we don't dominate the tackle enough to earn us the right to slow things down.....but even when we do we seem to pop up in a rush to avoid a penalty.

Think this along with the conservative attack of one man rugby is a planned risk free approach to stop giving opposition cheap and easy yards high up the pitch with knock ons and penalties.

But as we saw tonight, even risk free the ball can come free and lose possession in a bad place.

Ref again poor some ridiculous calls.
That aside our marker defence is weak , their last try was pathetic defence, and although we deserved the win we kept them in it imo.

We played some good stuff at times but daft offloads and errors at crucial times are becoming worrying. From a defensive perspective all our problems stem from our inability to control the ruck and with the one on one missed tackles close to our own creeping in it means we allow teams a way back into the game.
I thought Aiton coming back on in the 2nd half was the turning point. We were in total control with Burrow causing lots of problems around the ruck but Aiton came on and slowed the Leeds PTB down, and gave a aft penalty away on the 5th tackle which allowed Salford to steady the ship. He also has a very bad habit of flying out of the line ala JJB. The jury is still out on him IMO.
I'd rest JP next week, he will always give the team the same work rate every week regardless but I didn't think he seemed that effective, I'd bring Delaney into the front row for JP and I'd drop Kylie to the bench in place of Singleton. Kylie again was average in his first stint and much better in his 2nd so playing him off the bench may mean he's fresher and more effective.
No doubt Ward will take some stick for the 2 knock ons but up until that point he was carrying the ball quite wll I thought.

The Ward 1st knock on it was clearly a grapple before and the slo mo shot from behind showed Sau's hand in at the ball!

All the tell tale issues were again in evidence.

3rd/4th, no silverware.

This area seems a bit of lottery to me at the moment. You see teams getting away with all sorts of infringements for the majority of the game and then the ref will penalise a team for something that seems relatively innocuous in comparison to what's gone before. I thought the same thing happened to Salford when we were carrying the ball out away from our line in the 2nd half.

Interesting game if we are genuine contenders should we be struggling to beat teams at the base of the table?

Thought Salford looked to be an improving side and were a match for us for the most part. Harris looks to be getting a grip with the structures

On us I thought JJB was my MOM with excellent games from Zac, Burrow and Briscoe. On the other side Peacock, Hall and Ablett weren't great.

There has to be a better kicker than Zac!!

The little things needed to be winning silverware are lacking. Twice leeds put up a bomb deep in salfrods half and within seconds salford were halfway up the field.

Salford are battling for 8th spot, leeds should have won that game comfortably. They had chances once they got in front to take command and through incompetence continually allowed salford a way back into the game.

It wasn't good.

If you care to read my post you will see what I actually said was



The key word was "tempted" I then went on to still include him in the selction process but argued that he and Ward be rested to give Singleton and Minchella a chance to prove themselves.

On current form (last 5 games played each) Walters has made 147 tackles & 36 marker tackles, Ward 124 & 33MTs and Bailey 122 & 21MTs. Apart from being important in themselves the marker tackles show that the player was most likley to have been 1st or 2nd into the previous tackle.

Walters has only missed 3 more tackles than Bailey but has made 25 more (5 per match) so hence I suggested he should play on merit. Ward has missed 2.2 tackles per game more than Bailey but I cannot recall that they cost us 6 points and a victory like when Bailey vacated his post last week. You may not want to record this as a miss but I regarded it as a mess!

Like I said we know what Bails can do and he has the big match experience so Big Mac will have him penciled in so all the more reason to make a decision on Singleton and Minchella.

Ward has been unfairly picked on IMO. True he has not shown the same form as when he first broke into the side. But we know he has handling ability but is averaging 28.5 tackles per game and he has made 30% more tackles (457) to Bailey's 347. Bailey may have played a couple of games less but still puts in fewer tackles per game than Ward. In addition Ward is our 2nd best forward offloader equal with Ablett and Ward makes 11 times more offloads, 200% more clean breaks and more tackle busts per game than Bailey.

Overall this season Ward has missed 2.87 tackles per game and Bailey 1 missed tackle per game however with our rushed defence he is in good company with Ablett, Delaney & JP. So although these missed tackles stats are of concern his positives easily outway his negatives.

By the way BB apart from Ward for Delaney I picked the rest of the team right!

Salford are battling for 8th, but have had different coaches and form.

Maybe Harris from the start and they'd be in the 8 already instead of chasing it.

Zak has been a pretty good place kicker previously !! Burrow can kick can't he?

Salford didn't look like a 'base of the table' side; they are obviously an improving side.

For me Burrow at halfback alongside McGuire looked our best halfback combination for some time. Shock horror! considering which numbers they wear....When Burrow went to dummy half our half backs again looked ponderous. McGuire had his best game for quite some time.
It does look like it's our right threequarters turn to be the more threatening again.... coincidence now that Hardaker is back at FB? Hardaker incidentally probably saved Leeds the match (again). His last line of defence work is sublime - apart from the 'soft' try of course.

I agree JJB looked good; Walters always looks to threaten making a break with his enthusiastic running.

However Leeds still look far from the finished deal....not long left to get it right now

You nearly picked the same team as McDermott....not quite the same as 'right'

Aiton is working hard but does daft stuff for me. Had good moments, but let's himself down with brain farts in both attack and defence

JJB was MOM for me with a huge tackling effort and he drove the ball in well too. Walters also put in a good tackling stint and it was while these two were rested that Salford came back. Once they returned our defence looked more solid.

Burrow was good at both 7 and 9 and I thought Mags had a good game too. Singleton worked hard but he still looks a bit lightweight to me. JP, Kylie, Aiton and Ablett looked a bit tired.

IMO we look to be getting some rhythm back despite one or two still lacking sharpness. I will take the win in what was a real banana skin in waiting. Salford could trouble some of the contenders in the remainder of the season.

Burrow can kick and should have been kicking last night IMO.

With Burrow and McGuire together things looked quicker through the halves - perhaps he should continue with that and put Sinfield at 13 - you never know it might just work.

What is frustrating again was the lack of usable ball to Watkins or Moon in the second half - they can unlock defences but not from their 30 from a standing start.

Salford are 10th in this league - this should have been easier than it was. JP, Kylie and Ablett look tired I would be resting them next week against Bradford