Great win.

To be picky, we need to retain possession better, turning cheap balls, Sims needs to rub his hands in chalk not butter pre match.
We need to tighten up, giving away soft penalties. If Sir Kev was playing, we'd have lost the game.

The bench still looks light but the backs are bigger so it cancels the weight issue. I'm confident for most games but I would be happier to see us with a bigger pack when we play teams with big props Like Stains.

I thought we defended, bar the Leeds second try, excellently all game. Brilliant defensive performance.

I also thought our first try was obstruction, the turnover leading to their first try was a knock-on by Hall (given against Gidley), the turnover leading to their second try was a knock-on by Hall (given against Evans), and the incident leading to that penalty that Hardaker missed was extremely soft. It should have been 0-6, final score!

But Evans and Currie were immense and so were the two half backs. Sandow and Gidley were really something else. Not seen thy level of half back play for a good while for us. Brilliant!

BEvans, Bailey, Dodds & Laithwaite still to come back to the bench, it will be big enough.

Exactly - a rotating 4 of Hill, Sims, Dodds and Cox looks pretty big enough to me with Bailey, Evans & King in reserve. The bench was also light due to Currie playing centre. Westerman would have been on the bench otherwise.

Circumstances lead the bench to be a little lightweight for this game, but that will improve. We have to be more mindful of team hitting the ball in the tackle, most team seem to target us and in particular Simms and Penny. I thought we looked very fit, our defence was as good as its been for some time. Overall a good first performance.

Highly impressed with both centres. In a game against the best pair in superleague they defended for their life's and Currie in particular threw plenty going the other way.

Some clever signings have been made by the looks of it as well. I thought Cox and Julien looked real handfuls and Jack Hughes will get better (a couple of daft pens given by him but at Headingley you get a split second less to roll away from the attacker).

Exactly how I saw the decisions. I think Ablett tried to make the most of the obstruction just to win a penalty - if he hadn't he could have easily got to Sandow. Nevertheless, I think based on previous decisions it was obstruction and would have been furious if it was against us.

Mr Child however got his own back on the build up to their two tries (which were both on the back of Leeds knock-ons) and with the Penalty award for the missed Hardaker kick - if that is a penalty we seriously need to look at the rule books. One point - how was Matty Russell deemed to have knocked on when Hall kicked it through (twice) in the first half? Surely it should have been classed as a charge down as Hall kicked it or no knock on as it was never played at (i.e. he went for the initial ball before Hall kicked it from 10cm away from his hand).

I don't think anyone had a bad game - room for improvement from Sims and Lineham although both will come good. Jullien came on and looked dangerous - he gave us a bit of momentum at just the right time plus put a couple of big hits in which I want to see again. I was very impressed with Cox as I really wasn't expecting much - he looked solid and made some excellent drives.

On the Sky commentary - it was appalling as usual. Anyone would have thought that Leeds were down to their bare bones and had been training in a sports hall for the last month (although Phil Clarke claimed it was two months). Completely ignored the fact that we had 6 players out injured who would have all been in the 19 man squad if fit. I know we will never have a fully fit squad but missing 6 players at the start of a season is some going.

What he did last night was no different to what he did for us last year. Weird isn't it that fans of other clubs don't see what he does until he is in your own shirt

Yeah very impressive. Centres have been our weakest area in the last few years with Evans and Bridge constantly injured, Currie usually in the back row and Atkins being a shadow of his former self. And with Russell having the baility to make 20-30m coming off our own line four or five times a game week-after-week it will be hard for Ratchford to justify a place in our team if that level carries on because he wasn't particularly good anywhere last season. His best game was probably at Rcentre against Wigan at home so there's an argument to put Westwood on the bench and Currie in the back row to allow Ratchford a shot at centre. A good headache to have though.

I don't know whether it's that Sky just always want the usual hitters to win (Wigan Leeds Saints) over and over, year after year, because it's easier to market the game with the same team names winning all the time or whether they have a downer on us but they really don't like it when we turn up to any of those three teams and win. Eddie sounded like he'd bet his house that Leeds would win last night and lost it, he sounded gutted. and he's a Warringtonian (although CERTAINLY not a Wire!)

Finding a spot for Ratch is a formality with Matty making way, to facilitate him a FB or SO switch with Gidley.

The head scratcher for me would be Atkins...is anyone comfortable with bringing him straight back in just to put Westwood(perhaps) or Currie and/or Westerman on the bench?

Just watching the game back, you could argue this is the pre season game we didn't have, but needed, defensively.

The standard has been set now.

Agreed. Would Atkins inclusion raise the bar a notch?

Just thought I'd pop over from the Leeds board to congratulate you on a sound defensive effort. Some good line breaks too in what was a tight contest. We'd have beaten a good few teams with our own display last night. Obviously I'd have preferred a win but can't be too disappointed given the level of commitment our lot showed. The GF could well be decided by under 19 sides if the first teamers spend an entire season playing with that intensity.