A lot has been said by opposition fans about how we came to beat a 'superior' Leeds team on Saturday, much of it negative and focusing on niggling and roughing up. Well last night I started re watching the match and straight away I noticed the difference in the collision outcomes between the two teams.

A prime example is when Bowen returns the kick at 1:40, he is crunched by Peacock but bounces straight back up onto his feet for a quick PTB that JP can do nothing about, leading to a poor defensive line and allowing Burgess to go on his storming run.

At 3:30 Delaney takes tackle 4 and ends up on his back (something we had no business doing) which allowed us to force McGuire into a poor kick on the last which Bowen collects on the full. Two Leeds players tackle him but Bowen throws them off on the flow and is straight back up for the quick PTB.

As a rule we went down on our fronts and Leeds released us far too quickly. In my opinion McDermott's gameplan had a huge hole in it by neglecting the ruck and failing to test the boundaries of the referee at all. As an example, at 4:05 Sarginson takes the ball in and is tackled by no less than three Leeds players who should be in complete control of the ruck but make no effort whatsoever to do so. JP and Clarkson should have controlled the ruck until third man Delaney had got back in defence; there really was no need to let Sarginson regain his feet as quickly as they did and this is a prime example of how to screw your teammates over. Delaney ended up leaving a big hole in the defensive line and Dudson strode straight through it.

In contrast, Leeds went down on their backs and suffered the slow PTB, allowing us to get set and run a quick and solid defensive line which spoiled almost everything they tried to run, including putting huge pressure on a lot of their last play options.

I've long since emphasised the importance of the collision in deciding the outcome of a game. People will talk about the biff and the aggression, and yes it was good to watch, but in a way that was simply a manifestation of the passion, intensity and determination to win the collision. That was the real cornerstone of our victory.

Great.

Sounds like a reasonable analysis to me.

I wish I could review the recording I made on my virgin TiVo box but it's recorded the commentary but not the pictures. This is the second time it happened for Rugby matches I have recorded this season.

I was really looking forward to watching the match again as I think the performance was absolutely outstanding in the circumstances.