Yes he has really stepped up to the plate with JJB injured and so many of his tackles are one on one or first in. His 54 tackles against London were backing up 44 tackles at Odsal on Friday. He is solid and dependable with a high workrate and deserves some credit.

Totally agree.
He is there to do a job i.e run the ball in ofeten taking 3 or 4 defenders with him and making yards and he is a tackling machine as the stats show.
He is not there to create tries although he has done that from the games I have seen.
To say he is running in concrete is utter rubbish.
He and Ablett are the stand out players in our pack .

And yet Roy Powell is a Leeds legend.

My use of stats backs up my opinion. Yours doesn't which is why so you don't like stats.

Delaney's job in the 2nd row is to make the tackles and take the ball up which he has done tremendously well particularly in JJB's absence. He is also our 3rd best offloading forward. Your comment regarding him stopping potential good attacks could be applied to any of the forwards when they take the ball up. You appear not to understand that he is fullfilling his specific role. When they pass the ball to him he is expected to drive it in make metres and try to bust tackles - it is what they practice.

However my comment was that Delaney had made 54 tackles against London backing up 44 against Bradford a few days earlier. So your reply fails to acknowledge this huge defensive feat. You ignore this totally and make comments that he should be passing the ball and not making the meters.

For someone with so many prejudices it is amusing to hear you accuse me of having no concepts of the game. At least you are beginning to see the light regarding Burrow. Maybe with a little more experience you will come to see the same for Delaney?

The same can probably be said of most forwards in the game.

In order to win matches you have to do more than score...you have to score more than the opposition.
You do not however have to score every time a second rower gets involved in the play.

You need the likes of Delaney to get through the 'grunt' as I put it. You wouldn't want a team full of them, but for every magic player who can sniff something out or display something special, you need the 'grunt' to be able to get you in that position.

He and Paul Medley were quite a contrast in the second row ....

If he did return 4 kick offs it still means 6 other kick offs were probably returned by the other props. As griffin lasted only the first 10 mins or so the other props excluding griffin probably had 2/3 returns each. Kirke carried the ball strongly against London and deserves crrdit for that. Doing that on a weekly basis is what lets him down.

I think JJB and Hauraki both shouldn't be far off from coming back so we will have some new options in the backrow soon. I'm not even sure if this is relevant to what is being discussed but this just came into my head.

Kirke did have a decent game ,he also had a decent game against Widnes and wasn't the worst player in the rout at ST's unfortunately we wont/dont be have 14 players off key(v ST's) or play Widnes and London every week.
Now if he backs that up on friday and more importantly the week after against a big catalan pack then maybe overall opinions may soften but i won't be holding my breath especially after Singletons form and Pitts' departure.

Were you too busy concentrating on how tired Ryan Hall looked to notice Delaney put Ablett over for our first try?

Or perhaps his ball to Ablett for the break that led to BJBs 1st try?

Did you miss the comments from our coaching staff that the space exploited by our backs on the left was because London overcompensated their defenders to our right, a right where Delaney and Ablett had been marauding.

I often do wonder if we watch the same team you and I Gotcha.

He's been our best forward since moving to the pack. I think his & Buderus form towards the end of the season was one of the reasons we got to the Grand Final & won it. Having said that, yesterday he gave away a few silly penalties after half-time.

The more I see about Kirke this season the mote I think that when given a decent stint in the game rather than the 15 minute breather for JP then he actually performs pretty well.

I'm just not sure why he doesn't perform better in his low minutes games

Perhaps he's making a subtle point....too subtle for anybody else to notice

To the best of my knowledge Ryan Bailey returned 0 kickoffs and JP maybe had one. Probably due to the fact these two didnt always line up at the back. Kylie and singo and a couple of returns each but Kirke had the lions share, distorting in part is m/carry.

However it was still an improved performance and he has been looking better of late. It is as you say a matter of consistency