I see this time and time again.

Teams seem to play like their lives depend on it against leeds but then bend over and lube up against the other oppositon, and quite often after beating leeds they lose the week after.

This is quite often how you can sniff out a real title contender, because they dont have to play it like a cup final to beat leeds and can back up afterwards such as wigan warrington huddersfield.

Some of the comments on here are laughable.
I worried it might be the case and so it was.
We've gone into this on a basic game plan, keep our powder dry kinda thing. Just think we've not executed our basic game plan very well n been burned for it, against a Catalan team putting its strongest lineout of the yr out.
I'd lay money down we'll win the cup game or lose in one of the most epic games of the yr.
We are targeting the cup, make no mistake, I don't think we've done what we've planned too today very well n paid the price rather than throw the game but we've not shown them much and kept it for next month.
I'll have an any money bet we won't be beat by the same margin next time. Confident we'll win in fact.

Utter utter tripe. We've won 9 from 11. Beat Warrington, rovers(big game that outsiders don't understand, or ever could) and Leeds in a row.
We've fallen short away at Catalans putting out their strongest team of the yr in France. Nothing to do with playing Leeds, never looked like losing that, wire n rovers were arguably harder games!!

Because you didn't play with the same intensity that you played against leeds.

We weren't particularly more intense against Leeds, we just did a job on them. Leeds aren't all that to be honest.

There might be something in what you say about the intensity we played with against Leeds left us short today.
We played with the same intensity against Wire and then were crap against Rovers.

It happens all the time, if you play in a high intensity match your more then likely going to struggle to match that next week.

To suggest it only happens when teams play Leeds is very vain indeed.

Get how hard it is has been for leeds to win the grand final from 5th yet?

I think Gentle's comments on www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/22768961 make for very encouraging listening. Unlike some coaches, it's great to hear one with his feet on the ground assessing what need improving rather than excuses.

I think Gentle's comments on www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/22768961 make for very encouraging listening. Unlike some coaches, it's great to hear one with his feet on the ground assessing what need improving rather than excuses.

Never doubted the achievement or what Leeds have achieved.

As much as I dislike Leeds and like nothing more then getting one over on them, I'd never deny they've being the most successful club of the super league era. However you are not on your own as other clubs have being successful, so I still think its vain to suggest teams only raise there intensity to the max against Leeds.

Credit to Leeds for been so successful over the past few seasons, but don't agree that today's is a reaction to raising our game last week.

Think we raised our game at Warrington. Took that into the Derby, didn't play great, but that game carries a unique level of intensity, even more so with that final ten minutes. So really, by following the Leeds theory we should have been on our feet by the time they turned up at the KC and that didn't happen. We blitzed them in the first half and played within ourselves in the second half and won comfortably.

Losing at Les Cats is hardly a disgrace. I would have hoped for a closer game, but we're still one of the form sides and I have very confidence we'll still win most of our final games. We only have to play Wigan (Away) and Hudds (Home) from the Top 5.

agree there rugby raider

I am not too disappointed if I am honest, I think now after a fairly hefty beating the boys will be right up for it when we return to France in the cup!

I am still confident of a healthy end to the season as you quite rightly point out, it is a relatively easy run in with us only playing 2 teams above us in the table in the last 9 league games. Onwards and upwards.......

Plus, I would take 6 from the last 8 available points any day of the week considering the teams we have played!

I would have been happy with 4 points from the last 4 games so 6 is a great result. All teams have off days and the best teams have them less often. We're not as good as some fans think and 6th is probably where we're at in terms of the overall competition but the signs for the future are good.

It's also a wake up call for those who thought that a trip to france wasn't a massive ask in the CC

It'll probably be a good deal warmer in July and more than likely Dureau will be back.
It's a massive ask.
We'll be worthy of our semi-final shot if we can somehow manage to turn them over.
Not impossible, but unlikely for mine.