Wakefield blew it all through the second half - accepting for ten mins they were down a man - but negatively kicking the ball off the field didn't challenge St Helens in those conditions. Barba didn't fancy those bombs in traffic.

Surprised wakey kicked that last penalty goal. Thought they would have been smarter to kick into the saints corner and pin them down that end of the field. The importance of gamemanagement which is being discussed on this thread . Sinfield, McGuire etc etc.

Printer - I don't think Leeds need to beat Cas necessarily, but they need to get close enough to believe they can beat them. Relying on a team who have collectively shown nothing in important games for almost two full seasons to come alive on GF day with some air of completely undeserved superiority just doesn't wash. If we did that I reckon our 'confidence' due to the past would be a wafer-thin veneer and would disappear very quickly under pressure.

What are people classifying as important games in the last two years?

Huddersfield CC
Widnes at home to avoid dropping into the bottom 4
Hull CC

All of which the team failed to deliver any kind of performance let alone a win

You may well be correct in that if they get to the GFthe team will suddenly morph into Leeds c2015 - I would suggest the chances are more against than for that happening.

You may not lose the experience but you cannot turn back father time and the likes of McGuire, Burrow, Ablett, JJB are not anywhere near the players they once were and the likes of Peacock and Kylie simply haven't been replaced with anything approaching their quality and that is before you talk about the Sinfield factor.

burrow and McGuire have been match winners in grand finals, but they never have controlled a game. the semi v hull was a game crying out for a controlling half. when hull got on top we should continually kicked deep into touch,stopped their momentum and got back into the game. we played into there hands with naive plays.both great players but not a controlling half. lilley likely is the only one who can. be really interesting to see how he goes tonight

That game last night told it all for me. Two teams, so important for the win for where they need to be. Yet the intensity level in the game never even reached a level as high as zero. Such a poor poor competition this year.

Sinfield would have successfully kicked the goal then recovered the short kick off waltzed leeds down field and kicked drop goal . Kicking the pen from 4 6 wasn't the big failing for Trinity last night. Finn hitting the post with it then the mess on the back of the Saints kick is what cost them

This is a very good point. The last thing you want to be doing when under pressure and stuck in your half is to put up a long, high kick. Chances are it is going to be caught on the full and it will be run back towards the half way line giving the opposing team another attacking set and the chance to pile on the pressure.
Yet in the Hull CC game that is all we tried apart from the odd running it on the last against a set defence. Like you say hopefully Lilley will bring some creativity to our last tackle plays because at the moment if a team gets on top of us we are struggling to cope.

Simple mistakes from supposed elite athletes - Grix is mistake just waiting to happen

My opinion exactly. It made me laugh to hear the commentators bigging him up. Whenever I've seen him he always seems to make a critical error undermining anything good he may have done in the rest of the game.
OTOH Ben Barba seems to me to be upsetting the applecart at Saints with Lomax the big loser & that's despite last night's lucky win.

I'm surprised that Barba looks so out of shape after having had 12 weeks of opportunity to get fit...

In the Hull CC game McGuire and Moon didnt run the game well, but last week against Hull I thought McGuire and Burrow did a good job of running the game and it wouldn't have been close if our defence was on show, so I wouldnt write that combo off just yet.

Also, for those who are questioning our halves ability to win big games, what evidence is there that Gale, Roberts or McShane know how to win big games?
Are those people calling Hull or even Wigan the favourites?

To be fair to Burrow he probably has the best long kicking game in the squad and putting 38 on them shows that the pivots did a good job throughout that game. Admittedly they weren't put under nearly as much pressure as they were in the semi final but that has just as much to do with how terrible our entire pack and Briscoe were as it does with the Hull team.

Honestly if Wigan sneak into the top 4 then I can see them lifting the trophy at Old Trafford. They have a knack for peaking at the right time and know how to grind out a win.

We clearly are nowhere near where we were 18 months ago when we went out of the cup and if we can include games that left us in the bottom 4 surely we can all the recent games that got us into the top 4. The wins vs Hull, Saints and Salford at the end of the regular season and now Wigan, Saints and Hull in the 8's. If we aren't winning those then we're struggling to make the top 8.

And I'm not saying they'll just morph into 2015 Leeds on GF night but in ANY sport you can't downplay the experience factor when it comes to finals. If it's a Wigan vs Cas final do you not think Wigan's experience could be a major factor? And yes we haven't won a GF without Sinfield but Castleford haven't won one at all or even appeared in one.