If last week was bad, then that was absolutely terrible.
Fair play to Leigh but Leeds looked lost with the ball at the moment, and without Ablett in the back row there's no real link between the forwards and the backs. Delaney for all the graft has become a roadblock for our own attack as much as the opposition's, he simply doesn't pass the ball, he's excellent at attracting defenders so if he could just improve his handling he could be a real important weapon in our attack on the right, the same way Ablett is on the left.

Stevie Ward, and Clarkson showed up well I thought, and Robbie Ward looked a threat when given more licence to run out of DH. Walters was solid, but it's difficult to see what he brings to the party our other young back rowers don't.
Of the senior players only JP turned up the rest were poor.

Hopefully we've got our bad performances out of the system now, because without a massive improvement, we could be in for a hiding next week.

Complete waste of £20. I said I wasn't bothered about challenge cup and should have stuck with it. That was really poor.

I said before hand we should have put more youngsters in. We would have done much better. All credit Leigh, who put their bodies in the line, and worked incredibly hard. But some of those Leeds players were really poor. How bad does Sinfield need to get to have a rest? The props for me, other than Peacocks last 10 mins were poor.

Thought Stevie Ward was excellent and Don't know why went off. Clarkson looked very good. Hardaker showed moments of class.

Thought Briscoe looked well out, and should have been one rested. Watkins and Moon poor,. And agree with the above that Delaney made lots of ground, but so predictable in that they know he won't pass.

Not resting some of those will come back to haunt us. But credit Leigh again.

Forgot to add, Sutcliffe also gave it a good go. Although I still don't see any creativity for others.

Leigh deserve all the credit from that. Though not sure being part-time is that much of an disadvantage seeing as we seem to do f*ck all all week on the training field.

Indeed!

I'd say Leeds were lucky to get that win. But for the Leigh error in those last 10 minutes your team may well have been out of the cup, and to a Championship side.

All credit goes to Leigh for putting up an incredible performance. There will be a player in that team who will be kicking himself for a while I think!

We have nothing to offer at half back.

Thought Delaney made a couple of passes tonight and was surprised.

Thought Clarkson was decent, Ward went okay. Only hardaker and Sutcliffe in the backs emerged with any credit

whats happened to "sir kev"?

He's still Sir Kev. He's given us over 15 years and captained us to 6 titles.

He just doesn't offer very much at halfback sometimes, like the guy said.

Thought Sutcliffe was awful. He was the direct cause of several of the obstruction penalties by hanging on to the ball too long. His pass timing was poor. Looking like a one trick pony with the step. Needs to watch how McGuire pushes the ball around. There is potential but he'll have up his decision making speed and cut out the mistakes.

I think we got a glimpse of the world without Burrow, McGuire and Sinfield (his performance tonight with ball in hand was also non existent and his kicking game was erm.."novel"icon_wink.gif.

Delaney took the Leigh bait and forgot he can let go of the ball as well as catch it and seemed intent on playing like a Bishop - only moving diagonally.

Stevie Ward was the pick of the team the first half, defended with huge enthusiasm and look every dangerous running at holes not at the Leigh beef. It was strange, we opened them up early with the little inside pop and the way Leigh defended that could have worked all night. At the least it would have held the Leigh defence and stopped them all drifting wide and taking up all the space for our backs. But we didn't do it for the rest of the match. There was far too much c**k measuring up the middle.

In a way it was entertaining, a walkover would not have been as watchable. Leigh gave it everything and made very few mistakes - maybe Leeds were waiting for them to implode but they didn't and we gave them every encouragement to stick to their game plan.

Don't want to bang on about the obvious but a penalty for obstruction should actually be for obstructing someone. It's farcical, Sutcliffe scored - there was nobody obstructed. Bailey was in front of the ball doing nothing yards away from the running line of Sutcliffe. Most of the other penalties against both team were rediculous. I don't actually remember seeing any defender actually obstructed from making a tackle etc. it's not good enough to say "all teams know what is going to be penalised", it is actually stopping the game being played. Some serious common sense is needed here - a penalty for obstruction should mean a player was definitely physically obstructed and that obstruction meant the attacking side gained an advantage.

My other whinge is the bull***t rulings on playing at the ball when it's kicked at you from 6 inches. WTF are you supposed to do. Watkins had the ball hoofed at his legs from a foot away in the first half and apparently that was "played at" - the subsequent tackle reset was what gave Leigh the position to win the penalty that led to their first try. Leigh were also on the receiving end of some of these calls. Why did they decide turning your back when the ball is smashed in your direction is playing at the ball? What the hell was wrong with the laws the way they were? You can't even put pressure on a kicker anymore incase the ball hits you. Nuts.

We would have lost.

What? Ryan Brierley?

Agree with the rest of the post.

Few highlights for Leeds. Stevie Ward went well in the 1st half and Walters showed potential and is worth another go next week.
Agree with DHM regarding Sutcliffe, although he has shown glimpses of class in other games, tonight he was poor. Took to many poor options. Sinfield had one of his worst games of the season also.
Great credit to Leigh though, they were excellent and kept going. I thought they were tiring at times in the 2nd half but we came up with errors that appeared to reinvigorate them.

Thaler very poor tonight, which was uncharacteristic,usually very good

I thought it would be a big Leeds win. I thought that because I didn't think Leigh would play as well as they did, and I didn't think Leeds would play as badly as they did.

By saying Leeds played poorly I'm not disrespecting Leigh in any way as part of the reason Leeds were poor was due to Leigh, but it's still a fact that Leeds were poor for most of that game.

There's a few players to come out of that game with some credit, in my opinion:
Hardaker, Hall, Leuluai & Peacock (just), Delaney & both R & S Ward.
Oh and every single Leigh player.

The rest were average to poor in my opinion.

My biggest annoyance is with Kirke & Bailey. I know they're often the centre of fans ire on the Leeds board at the moment and it can be easy to fall into the trap of making them scapegoats, but tonight was a chance to step up and at least show some willing yet I reckon we only got 1 decent run from each of them and Bailey in particular is becoming a liability in defence, especially at marker.
They are 2 senior props now. They need to be stepping up and taking workload off Peacock & Leuluai, especially during periods of the game when it seems like the 2 proper props aren't being quite as effective or making quite the same impact as usual.

I'm not one who likes throwing the young lads in early, but if we're going to have a prop who makes few effective runs and gets stepped around in defence I'd rather it be a young lad learning the game than a senior player who should be doing more.

My most irritating annoyance (other than that rash I got off a very welcoming lady in Amsterdam) is how many kicks we have charged down. Good god Sinfield just stand a few yards further back!

I think we were a little unlucky in the game itself. Our errors came at vital moments just as we were starting to build pressure and I thought we were on the wrong side of some refereeing calls.


But that's not to take anything away from Leigh, they played better than a few SL sides have at Headingley this year, they were superb.