Personally think the first half at Saints shades it but second half today definitely second.

Yes it was. Taking a positive, the ability to go from appalling to good with a team talk and the right interchanges is an encouraging sign

The team selection was typical Kear and shows the benefit of his experience. Leigh are a big side. He started with Hadley on at 9, certainly more beef than Wood or Finn would have been, to soak up the early heavy work. When the forwards have done their job and soaked up the pressure and taken some of the energy from the Leigh side, you bring on Miller and have all your fast men on the park, and probably the quickest half-back the most fresh.

And it worked.

The usual moaners at back of east stand will have gone home unhappy with a victory.
Have listened to them for 40 plus years spouting forth doom and gloom.
Really do not know why some attend,

I have to say that the way it played out, you are right, though I'm not sure how much soaking up we did. It was more like passive Rugby and rolling over from 20-40 mins. And whilst I don't want to be churlish when we have won, "The team selection was typical Kear" kind of voices the slight disquiet I have about this arrangement. But if it works well so what? If Kear and Chester are happy, the team is happy, then my speculation is unfounded and we are all happy

Agree, also 2nd half was a classical Kear-style performance - drag a team into an arm wrestle, and be better at the basics. Great tactic which came up with the goods tonight.

1st half will be a concern, still waiting for a complete performance but at least we know the lads can grind out results.

Thought Hirst looked a handful and Fifita had arguably best game in a Wakey shirt - great offload for the opener as well.

FIFITA was awesome for the whole time he was on, both halves. He really has upped his game. He looks much fitter and is taking risks in the right parts of the field. He was a real handful for them and was one of the reasons we won. We certainly have some match winners, which is good news. I agree, Hirst also looked the part too. Makes you wonder why he wasn't in SL before

The only reason I said that was because a few years ago, when JK was last here, I was friendly with Mrs Kear and was invited to be her guest at a couple of games. When GB or England were playing the Aussies and there was a lot of selection talk, I asked Mrs Kear who John would play in the halves.

I expected a "John says he would play Joe Bloggs" and that would be it (can't remember who was under discussion at the time). The text I got back was not only his full team selection but also when and how the subs would be used. His selection was all about playing a forward in the halves for the first twenty, "to take the sting out of the game", and then rotating the subs so that a half-back came on and took over.

The selection tonight reminded me of that.

Chris Chester brings the creativity and the desire for open rugby. JK brings the experience and structure. On the whole, it's working.

We need to sort our goal line defence out though, think we've defended about 2 sets all season that have started in our own 20. We've done well to get back into the game but not gonna be enough when we meet Cas and Wigan

Don't agree with that tbh.

Yes if you view last night in isolation we had a shocking twenty minutes I agree. However over the season so far the improvement has been a bit of a highlight to me. Our goal line defence won us the game against Saints and to a degree Salford and it was absolutely superb against Hull.

Yes it's not there yet but it's not bad IMHO.

The let down for me is silly of poorly executed plays. Grix silly kick on the third. Even if that had worked what was the net gain! Or Chester's silly decision to go for two! It wasn't a certain two points and even if it had of been I'm not sure it was worth it, Time and time gain it's the basics we get wrong though more so against Leeds than last night.

That said at least we didn't kick it straight over the dead ball line like the Leigh player did on the second, now that was a brain fart

I know that the wheels came off badly afterwards but, we defended plenty of sets on our own line at Headingley.
Having said that, Leigh must have thought that Christmas had com early with the gift of 2 very soft tries in the first half.
It didn't help that one of them was from Johnsston getting stripped in a 3 on 1 tackle (given as a knock on ).

I must admit when I saw the team and bench i was surprised and a little bit concerened that we lacked a bit of size on the bench but its fair to say it worked.

When Hadley was on at hooker I think I am right in saying we were 12-6 up so you have to say that worked and also bring on a fresh Miller had a massive impact on the game. Fair play to Chester for making a bold and ultimately successful team selection.

Not quite sure of the arrangement as yet.

There has been so many coaching double acts in the past that have failed and ended in tears.

Last nights selection was Kear-esq I thought, and it felt similar to the 2008 challenge cup semi final.

That said apart from Leeds and the first half last night, our defence has been betterm, but I think at the moment, at the expense of the attacking rubgy we were producing last week