Just a minor change to the team then

I fail to see how our attack was miles better with Tommy at hooker. We only scored one try with him in that position and that was a barge over from Lockers.

We tend to be quicker round the ruck with Leuluai at hooker though, whereas with McIlorum the pace is very sluggish. You rarely see teams doing well these days without a quick ruck. It's how Saints got on top against Salford, it's how Wire were so successful last season, it's why Burrow has been so effective at hooker for Leeds.
If the pace isn't quick then the hooker has to be creative. McIlorum isn't. His distribution isn't great, his decision making hasn't been good and his individual attacking input is poor.

He can read the game pretty well in defence though, despite the mistake for Gilmour's try last week. He's got something to offer but his attacking play leaves a lot to be desired.

Hopefully he'll get that aspect of his game sorted this season though. There's still time and when playing for the academy he used to have some good attacking performances. It is painfully obvious that on most occasions in the past he's had little effect when attacking.

as a mcilorum basher, id like to say he had a cracker tonight. keep it up.

Me too.. I thought Goulding was very good also.

He did - he'd have been my MoM tonight if not for Josh's outstanding performance.

agreed

Excellent performance from McIlorum. I criticise him when things go badly so it's only right to praise him when he does well. He played with a bit more aggression and it seemed to benefit him. He was quicker around the ruck and his defence was absolutely outstanding.
We do need to use Leuluai at hooker though as we needed to change things around once McIlorum tired and things got a little too predictable but he played most of the game and was probably our second best player after Charnley.

good game from both McIlorum & Goulding, thought the hole team played very well, even Hock

had a great game today and its only fair he gets the plaudits he deserves... defensively he was a hard hitter, played with lots of aggression and going forward he mixed it up a bit too.

are you sure your feeling ok BBB..

i do agree

The solution is somebody needs to punch Micky before the match. He was awesome after that confrontation, he smashed everything that moved

P.S Baggsy not me doing it

McIllorum seems to be getting a lot of praise on here this morning, and so he should. Truth is he performed exactly the same as that in the first half of the Huddersfield game. He blatently got the rough end of the stick by a lot of fans looking for someone to blame for our lack of ideas in attack, and him being asked to do a very long stint.

He's a completely different style of hooker to Tommy, but we would certainly miss him if he is was not there. No other player at the club has the engine to work like he does, in one of the most demanding positions on the park.

The key is to manage both hookers appropriately depending on the opposition.

He didn't. He played much better last night. He still wasn't deadly in attack but the pack was much more physical and ran the ball in harder. He made errors defensively against Huddersfield whereas against Leeds he was spot on every time.