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.

Apart from his questionable fitness, if I was a saints fan I would be more worried about his lack of interest and enthusiasm.
He did not seem interested in the foot race to prevent the wakey break out try. Nor did he have the appetite for the high ball, he obviously is a class player . All that counts for nothing if he does not want to be in the uk.

I personally think its the most open play off series ever. Cas will be favorites and rightly so but they will have huge pressure on them and they are yet to prove they can handle it. Of the other teams us, Hull Wigan or Saints ( i think sadly Wakey blew their chance last night although would be happy to be proved wrong) all have recent experience of big games and winning in them and the club cultures are all abouy success, i dont buy posters coming on here citing we cant do it without JP and Sinfield...probably the same ones saying they were done and finished in 2011/12

Fact is the SL standard is not great, we can beat anyone in a one off game, and this is a fantastic opportunity for an unexpected last hurrah we thought we'd had in 2015.

oh I agree with every word. in a one off game of course we can win. but I still think we would be a damn sight better side with a halfback in the sinfield, gale mode who knows when to play, when to kick, when to slow down and when to speed up. we don't have that

17 as expected with Walker ahead of Golding. But Ablett on the bench with Cuthbertson loose and Garbutt starting prop. Not saying it's wrong for Ablett to be demoted to the bench, I agree (fortunate in fact to make the 17 lately) but a bit surprised. Hopefully a demotion and coming on mid game may see some improvement from him.

I don't think we are a lot better than 2016 I just the competition has degraded significantly. Leeds aren't second because they are so much better than last year and everyone else has stood still.

When have Leeds played in a game they really have to win in 2017 - when you are saying beating Salford is a must win game you really the p1ss. You can always recover from most losses in league. That one game they had to win to materially impact their season they were an embarrassment.

What I think is if Wigan get the final they have a leader in O'Loughlin and they have potentially the best side in the competition. Wigan are the one side I wouldn't want to play in the play off semi final.

Oh give over it's bloody laughable this site.

2015 - we haven't got better everyone has just gone backwards

2016 - other teams have gone forwards whilst we stood still/went backwards

2017 - we haven't got better everyone has just gone backwards

We've still got a lot of room to improve but anybody who thinks we haven't improved a lot since the first half of 2016 needs to give their head a shake and stop being determined to be negative.

The others team in league, again they plenty of room for improvement, but the overall standard isn't really any different from 2016. It hasn't dropped dramatically at all. It's just a weak excuse because Leeds have finished much higher than what many tipped.

Nah i i have to disagree i think we are a whole lot better this year, that said we have not had the degree of key injuries we had to deal with in the first half of last year which left us cast adrift and gone by the time Segeyaro came and our squad was healthy.

I don't think the comp is all that, far from it but i'd be interested to know where you think it has degraded so significantly i mean, wire suffered the same fate as us with a similar squad to last year and Cas have played great rugby and been better than anything seen last year by a distance thus far. Everywhere else it looks pretty similar to be honest.

What are you watching?
Castleford have been great we are second and deservedly so!