I think this Leeds squad would do very well to finish above bottom of the table and it is my team so certainly no biased. A lot of people are tipping NZ Warriors to finish bottom two and looking at their squad i think they would romp away with SL were they put into it now.

I don't think that's entirely accurate to be honest. As a whole the leagues are worlds apart, with the NRL being far more consistent at a higher level, but the best teams in SL aren't necessarily bottom of the ladder fodder in the NRL. They don't have the consistency so on a bad day can get walloped, but on a good day (which is quite often) they can beat the best and occasionally look good doing it. Leeds [icould[/i finish bottom of the NRL if they had a bad season, but they also could finish a few rungs higher up if they had a damn good one. "Pick up a few wins" is selling them short imo.

I believe in what Brian Mcdermott has said since the game. Give him 10 weeks of NRL games and he could get that Leeds team close to Melbourne. Ambitious but his point is valid regarding consistently higher intensity.

Leeds were obviously lacking forward power. Need a full strength pack against Melbourne.

In some respects that's a fair comment, but regardless of the opposition look at getting your team closer to that level of intensity in the week to week SL rounds. which leeds, regardless of success, have very rarely achieved.

The two friendlies should have been Friday and the WCC should have been today.

I think to Macs credit he can get a club ready to win whats on offer. That doesn't require winning every week it means doing enough in the season and then peaking in Sept/Oct.

Very true, but the average fayre on offer during the weekly rounds isnt going to grow the fan base or the game as a whole.

Hahahaha give over, ten points behind us last year. I think that would mean we would make the playoffs in the nrl or something then

No matter how long that McDermott spouts off any side in SL would be humiliated weekly in the NRL and finish bottom.

The only way we’re gonna get week in, week out, high intensity games, is through scrapping the GF and making the regular season league leaders the champions.

If Melbourne had travelled here without half their pack, a half who couldn't train, a refereeing system that favoured Leeds, played over half the game with only fifteen men and then lost people on here would be falling over themselves to make excuses for them. Nobody would accept it as an indicator that Leeds would do well in theNRL but reverse the roles and you'd think the Storm players could walk on water.

Yes they're better than us, as they should be with their resources, but the inferiority complex of British league fans is unbelievable sometimes.

Melbourne whacked plenty of NRL teams last year by similar score lines, including the Grand Final against North Queensland. Those teams didn’t have to travel to the other side of the world with just a few days to recover (and probably weren’t missing as many players).

I’ll be honest I don’t like Leeds much but I certainly wouldn’t mock them for yesterday’s efforts. They were brave enough to get the game on when Melbourne couldn’t be bothered coming here.

Only for those teams who stay in the hunt throughout and even then they could be facing teams in 6/7/8th that are going through the motions.

The middle 4 will always eventually have nothing to play for, but top and bottom 4 will always be playing for something. There’s always dead runners in any league system, in any sport.