Im not sure I agree with you there, in 2015 Leeds won the treble with a highly entertaining high risk improvisational style of play, but I dont think many teams reacted in 2016 by taking more risks or allowing players more freedom

I actually dont think Cas were too bad in the first half and had us under the cosh a few times but we showed up well. IMO Cas seemed to think that they would blow us away at some point and when the realisation came that it wouldnt happen they lost the plot in the second half.

Also it seems that Leeds (as Saints and Hull already did) have finally learned to stop jamming in against Cas' block plays and shift in defence and work from the inside Hallelujah!!

I have the distinct impression now that Castleford are chokers.

Look at their record in 2017. League leaders yes. But they couldn't make the Challenge Cup Final. Then they squeaked into the Grand Final with an extra time field goal against the mighty St Helens. But they couldn't score a point against Leeds in the first half. They were only good at spilling the ball.

What a bunch of nervous nellies! They are chokers, mark my words!

A meaningless award from the people that gave Kevin Sinfield the "Golden Boot".

No one West of the Pennines bothers even looking at who has won that due to it being a fan boy award.

Meaningless yeat maybe. But you still need to have has a good season to win it.

unlike the grand final ??

Arguably.

That said, if the best team deliver their worst game for the biggest game when everyone knows the drill and has known the drill for 19 years or so then so be it.

I knew that finishing first wouldn't guarantee us side as last night I just knew it would give us the best opportunity to get there which we did. Anything can happen in finals rugby. A shame we were so turgid but it is what it is.

Well I think its all going a bit about face, nobody would argue that winning the league in a straight up most points after 28 games scenario, is a bigger achievement than winning a 6 game knockout challenge cup comp, but effectively that is what is happening to the 8's, the thing is a short d cup comp that carries far less credibility.
Well, at least I think it does, no point in asking Leeds fans that question, but for me personally Cas showed their metal all season, the GF don't mean 5h1t, but the headlines will say different.

The Grand Final means everything and I say that despite watching my team lose three of them and win none. Champions turn up when it matters. It's no good running rings around everybody all year and then going missing when it counts. The biggest thing that has cost Wires in my opinion was always game management - never slowing things down, taking an easy two points etc - and the best in Super League at that was Kevin Sinfield. Danny McGuire learned from him and ran the show while Gale just looked lost and frustrated (granted his pack didn't help him much). That was a champion performance in every sense from Leeds.

It's like Sprinter Asafa Powell, ran over 100 sub ten second 100m more than any man ever broke the world record more times than usain bolt. But never one an Olympic or world championship gold.

Yes they would. The grand final is what matters form is temporary class is permanent. Cas could not cut it when it mattered, out of the 3 really big games theybhave played this year they lost the two that really mattered 2 and have ended up with the lesser of all the prizes

I think this idea that Cas bottled it and did not turn up is way off the mark, Cas success this year has been off fast play the balls gaining quick momentum and fast yards, then well planned executed set plays utilising dummy runners and creating over Lapps. They simply never got that last night due to Leeds. Completely dominating them in defense, Leeds just stopped them dead in there tracks and Cas never got any momentum, when Cas did move the ball out wide, Leeds had learned their lessons from previous games and numbered up and used a great slide defense.
It was a masterful defenseive display which gave the foundation for a dominant win.

Also it was wet drizzly all night both sides lost plenty of ball, Leeds just handled the situation better.

I reckon that Cas performance yesterday has devalued the LLS its gone back to Hub Cap status again. For the seasons favourites to be be nilled right up to the 79th minute is a real choker of a situation.

Congratulations to Leeds - in spite of everything, their experience showed; after a year when Cas have been lauded as playing some kind of magical version of RL, they took them apart - with help from secret agent Hardaker.

Poor game - and not a great advert for the sport - but a fitting end to the careers of two Leeds legends; both of whom would have walked into any SL side and made it better.

The LLS has always been a lesser prize since the game reintroduced the play off deciders in 1998. I loved watching us win it in 2011 because I'd never seen us do it before, but I didn't care much last year because all I wanted was the big prize which continues to elude us. We have loads of people in Warrington trying to declare us the true champions of 2011 and 2016 and whinging about the "Sky Cup" (conveniently ignoring that the Rugby League Championship Final pre-dates Sky by decades).

Do we want a format where the champions are potentially declared weeks before the end of the season (as Cas would have been this year), followed by a Premiership Trophy which, although very nice, would be a lesser prize and after a few years would result in finals being held at Challenge Cup semi final level grounds because only week in week out supporters of the two clubs involved would really bother going? Personally I prefer the format where it's on the line right up until the very end of the season and decided in front of 70,000 at the biggest ground in the north in a showpiece fixture. Just because I personally have three dreadful memories of that fixture doesn't change anything. Cas peaked early. Leeds knew. They're the champions and fully deserve the title.