Not dismissing Saints' chances but it doesn't alter the results between us so far.

To ignore the turnaround thing is kind of head in sand stuff though. To claim their's a equal list of short turnaround wins neither holds up or highlights not every one of those will be a game between 1st vs 2nd in a cup semi final. You can't honestly believe an extra two days rest for Leeds (or even two days less for Saints) wouldn't alter a thing about the game?

As for the injuries. You get a 2nd rower get injured then you roll another 2nd row on in a straight swap. Aiton who defends in the traditional hooker position in the middle making 30/40 tackles goes off and the 'replacement' in Burrow comes on and defends next to Hall and everyone has to move in one. Imagine Roby going off and his replacement has to defend out wide, what effect would that have on your props not having Roby (or a replacement) to defend with them in the middle? Very significant indeed.

You've beaten us fair and square on all three occasions.

I do believe the extra day or two is a red herring. I've seen us win Grand Finals after a fortnight off, I've seen us win without it. I've seen us lose to teams with a shorter turnaround and win in similar situations etc. Sure, in theory you'd have less energy but I think in games like this, adrenaline takes over. Second half, you were kicking to touch a lot anyhow because the manner in which you start games saps plenty from you.

Injuries, yeah they matter a lot. It's no excuse anyway, they happen and we get on with it. Vea was a huge loss in that particular game. He's quickly become a big part of our set up. I think we've only really recognised just how big he is for us in the couple of games since he's been back (and now gone). Like for like in theory but it takes something away.

Nevertheless, you won, we didn't. You deserved it. Good luck to you for the final and hopefully, we'll get another shot at you later in the season.

Phil clarke on sky looked into the short turnaround thing and said the evidence shows that the short turnaround doesn't hinder anyone. He went into his usual crap with stats etc to come to the conclusion

I think leeds and saints are the best two teams in the league . That does not mean either Leeds or Saints are guaranteed to win anything .
Wigan can play a spoiling game and upset the applecart. We played well last Friday and deserved our victory. If we played you at old trafford I would think it would be anybody's game.
So the answer to your question, yes you can beat Leeds. From a rugby point of veiw a Leeds -Saints grand final would suit me, we would see a decent game conducted in good spirit, as per last Friday .
Fingers crossed it will not feature Wigan .

The thing is we haven't learnt our lessons from the 3 encounters, we have the worse half backs and full back in super league for defence, Leeds just ran across the line until eventually they came across these 3 players and went through the turnstiles.
We are reasonable against teams below us but a poor second when we play Leeds, we could play Leeds 5 times this season but its the last one that counts.

I think the main lesson you could learn ,would be to ask Walsh to stop kicking direct to our full back.
He is rock solid under the high ball,just like wellens in his prime. I could not believe how often you gave the ball away.
Surely you won't repeat that mistake next time we meet you.

We undoubtedly have the worst scrum half in the league on defence. I can't really make a judgement on Quinlan (other than he's quite small) since he's only been here for a few weeks. There's nothing wrong with Burns. The guy tackles like a demon.

At times, like when he ended JJBs night. He does however miss an awful lot of tackles. Look at the Hull KR game and Dixon's try. He misses the tackle that creates the break upfield then misses the tackle on Dixon that allows him to score.

He misses tackles because he attempts a lot of tackles. The guy has a terrific appetite for the kind of dirty work most halves prefer not to get involved in. But he is only a half-back, which means he's going to get smoked once in a while.

I can deal with Burns missing the odd tackle in the same way I did when Sean Long was beaten.

What I can't deal with is a scrum half who has all the lateral mobility of Long John Silver.

Well, they've lost Sinfield, Peacock, Aiton, possibly JJB as well for next season...2 of them are greats of the game. Aiton is a cracking little hooker and JJB has been a top servant for them.

It'll be interesting to see how they get on next season.

You missed off Leuleuai too.

He doesn,t look as though he can make any impact in a tackle and easily gets wrong footed, taking high balls and support play is excellent but defence is the worse I,ve seen in a saints full back shirt.

Forgot about him. He's been excellent for them and another big loss.

But Long could run. Were you happy with Burns 11 metres with the ball on Friday?

btw Walsh ran for 54 metres.

Just been watching the game again and actually it was a better game than it seemed on the night.

I never got to watch it on TV, but when you do, you can see how hard Leeds are pounding the Saints line with both possession and territory. But we didn't crack as badly as we could have, both tries where team errors, I think Moon for the first try ran past 7 Saints players, so pinning it on Walsh is just wrong, someone should have tackled Moon far earlier.

The same for Burrows break we had started to turn the game and then in Leeds half we had a moment of Laziness and let him run across 3 players.

Leeds were very good no doubt, but we were good also, just not good enough. But it is not an insurmountable gap.
That does not mean I think we will win the next meeting, but talk of not beating Leeds this year is very premature.

We had chances in that first half that we bombed.
2 drops by LMS on the line
Greenwood dropping the ball
forward pass by walsh to Quinlan

We could have done better.