Is McNally carrying an injury?
The only time I saw him run with the ball was for a 20m restart.
Every other time he received the ball it was immediately passed to another player to run with.
Just one example of the difference between the teams yesterday. Fax wanted it and Leigh 'expected' it. That made a big difference to the outcome of the game.

I think criticism of our coach is unfair. Yesterday our pack contained a hooker 4 prop forwards and one regular second row.Haggerty was suspended' Hopkins Barlow Sarsfield and Goulden not available.

Four props could not match the pace of the Fax pack and lets be honest they are not used to passing a lot of balls to other players. The consequence of playing four props was that due to their lack of pace we kept leaving gaps in our defensive line.

That was a truly dreadful performance, and so disappointing, especially given the opportunity presented by Bradford and Wakefield's demise earlier in the weekend.

I know 'Fax played well, and all credit to them for that, but we looked utterly lacking in energy, desire, skill and even pace. True, we did briefly threaten for 10-15 minutes at the start of the second half, but that was only because 'Fax were starved of possession for that spell. As soon as they got the ball back, it became 'business as usual'.

It would seem that, yet again, we have had an outstanding season, but completely 'bottled it' in the play-offs. I'm afraid that, on the evidence of four of these 'Qualifier' games, we have players who just can't hack it at this level.

Whilst we can still mathematically get into 5th place, we are now reliant on others doing us favours. If 'Fax maintain yesterday's form, they can beat both Wakefield and Bradford. However, if they do that, and even if we somehow win our last two games, 'Fax could finish above us too!

That's the third really uncomfortable game 'Fax have given us, this season. Once again, I would stress that I believe them to be a very good, honest team, but the question needs to be asked how a 'part-time' team can reduce a 'full-time' team to the disjointed rabble we were yesterday.

One truly disappointed Leyther!

The rabid optimists like Atomic were only a small majority, most of us were realists despite the excellent results leading up to the qualifiers. The target of most fans was fifth place with fourth place bonus. As someone mentioned previously, some of the players have played too many games and are spent forces, you can be mentally weary as well as physically. The annoying thing throughout the season was the poor discipline born of arrogance, unfortunately that attitude filters down from the very top.

Almost looks like we are deliberately working towards building up the quality of humility, lately!

if the players have run out of steam why have players who have performed well in the reserves not been played in some of fixtures at the end of the season.Reynolds being one prime example,both of our half backs could have been rested to give him some game time.We seem to have lost any aggression in our pack and I don't mean by that being dirty

You make a very valid point with regards to mentally and physically exhausted. It was very much evident at the AJ Bell yesterday where you could see the weariness in the Salford team. I think a lot of teams are starting to run on empty which can make foregone conclusions on paper, less certain by the week. As for Leigh, I think you peaked just slightly too early, but you're not out of it just yet.

That prediction was made based at the time on their current form.If they had shown anywhere near that form in these qualifiers,you wouldn't be posting here.

Could it be that your player’s performances are being affected by the fact that your chairman has stated that he has signed at least 5 new players for next year so I would assume that quite a number of the team will not be in the starting set up?

There also seems a shift in the philosophy at Leigh which was building a young team together with a few old heads and having a family environment so that the team all plays for each other.
With the rumoured signings of Tim Smith, Maitua, Hansen, Paterson (mainly all 30 and above) and trying to obtain Chase this appears to be going in a different direction to what has achieved you success in the past.

Will Leigh be Salford Mark II?

Difficult equation to balance Tony.

What has become obvious (well, to me) is that we need a squad of players who are savvy enough to perform well, at the 'Qualifier' stage of the season. (presuming we are lucky/good enough to be at that stage again, next season) And, while I accept that the coach has to win the games to earn a crack at the Qualifiers, somehow the squad needs to be fully utilised during the season, so that they are ALL fit and ready for the Qualifier matches.

Glad I'm not a coach!!

Looks like you'll have to beat Bradford and then come here to Widnes and grab the points to stand any chance of even 5th

I still think this team is skilful and good enough to win promotion to SL (though not this year) but god have we been naïve. Looks like the team got carried away with the hype and thought we were entitled to a place in SL rather than having to earn it. Thinking we could just turn up away at Fax, expecting SL clubs to give us chances and not gain momentum and go on a role. Think this year has been a steep learning curve but we'll learn from it and come back better & stronger next year.

There are still a few possible scenarios available yet.One of which could see us requiring points rather than the win when we play you.