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.

Great effort from leigh. Thought in generally most of the forwards went pretty well. Thought the main problem was in the lack of shape and direction in the backs

In what way can you come up with that?

Leigh were good from enthusiasm and hunger. They have a lot of young players in that side. Our older and experienced players let us down, what Leigh had is what we were missing.

I also don't agree with this myth that Leigh deserved to win. After their second try they never really looked like scoring. Even the Wilkes dropped ball, we would have held him up anyway. Just because Leeds were poor in attack and not taking chances, which kept it close, doesn't mean Leigh deserved to win.

And whilst they get a lot of credit for their effort, and deservedly so, they are not doing anything different to what Featherstone have done a couple of times in recent seasons. Would be good to see a championship with Leigh like this, and the Fev,Halifax, and Sheffield good teams of recent seasons.

What a pr1ck.

Regardless of which team you fielded, all your players are full time versus our part time boys, most of which had done a full day's work before heading over to Leeds. You should have easily beat us by at least 40 points with your superstar players (our whole team's wages probably isn't as much as Peacock's).

The score flattered Leeds, and to say otherwise is downright disrespectful. What a patronising t0sser you are - why would you want to keep a team like Leigh in the Championship? You are everything I hate about SL supporters who think they have a God given right to be in SL. You might have had an easy ride for the last few years with no P & R, but us lowly Championship teams are fighting to earn the right to join you.

Thought you might be keeping a low profile for a few days after some of the rubbish spouted the last few days.
This was always a tricky game and while some of our more experienced players are off form we would have lost if we had made wholesale changes some on here were demanding.

I'm sure most of us Leeds fans agree with you here. Just be glad you don't have to put up with his all knowing expertise on a regular basis.

Can talk about the Fev, Halifax and Sheffield teams off the last few seasons but it's irrelevant. Right now you guys look like next year, if it continues, you'll do a job when the league splits. And good luck to you. Thought Rowley got the tactics spot on and he's obviously got a team who believes in him and play for each other. Listen to JP's interview after the game and he's all about praise for Leigh, and most of us won't disagree.

Can talk about youngsters playing and doing better for us, but youngsters without a strong game plan and poor execution would have struggled last night. In the end we needed the experienced heads more than we would have liked.

Bluddy awful... Looks like Huddersfield will gain another easy win over Leeds during this current loss of form. As long as it is at this part of the season the repercussions won't be too bad.....but so much dropped ball, badly timed runs and poor team communication ..ughh! No cohesion on attack is getting worse not better.
As for individuals: as others have said Kirke and Bailey should be taking more responsibility from our 2 old warhorses - if they are apparently unable to why deprive some younger lads from the step up? Look no further than Wigan for endorsement.
Delaney was one of few that made any progress up field ...but in the style of a bluddy good prop. If it goes and it looks like a prop then why not play it at prop. ..Watkins and Briscoe would get as many passes from a brick wall. Briscoe !!!!! What happened? His abilities for bad defence and over running the ball are getting worse. His confidence has taken a battering. Watkins too was masking his obvious talents with silly dropped ball. Sinfield simply needs a rest: nowt left in the tank and ponderously slow at the moment.

The few positives were provided by the young uns ..loved the confidence of Robbie Ward's try. A proper hooker's try. He should be encouraged. His namesake too had his best game of the season to date. Sutcliffe has been criticised elsewhere but I was impressed by his attempts to take on the line with some threat...contrast with any other of our present first choice "halfbacks"... His team members need to better support his half breaks. A speedy little beep beep like character alongside him perhaps in the scrum half role......
Young Josh Walters looked promising too. He seemed to have bags of confidence was not afraid to take the ball in and looked quite effective in his go forward when he did,

As for Hardaker! At this moment in time my Leeds player of the year ....AND man of steel. The lad is a revelation who gets better and better. Let's not forget he also can kick the ball; the duties of which he currently has to defer to his captain.

You're right. It is easier to slip the good Wigan young uns in because of their superior coaching ...cough!
However I still reckon Mulhern can be no worse than Kirke off the bench and Singleton starting - leaving Kylie to come off the bench - would be no more detrimental to the team.

kirke is a total waste of a shirt, contributed nothing whatsoever.
i thought bailey did ok. i'm not a fine but he did a decent job last night.
sutcliffe continually came back inside when a simple pass outside who have created chances, he did this time and again.
get the forwards sorted and things will turn around. no go forward and you can't expect the backs to have a major impact