A real shame Hookem not fit as would have liked to see him given a go.

Shaul
Swift
Walker
Griffin
Mitch
Connor
Reynolds
Bowden
Lovodua
Sao
Savelio
Lane
Fash

Satae
Evans
Houghton
Brown

How is Hodgson the scapegoat? Unfortunately the buck stops with him and there were a lot of things wrong on Sunday at Cas. From team/bench selection, the use of the interchanges (which were questionable last season) and that he had opportunities to change things, at halftime he had an opportunity to address the players to change things but it appeared nothing was done.
That’s not people using him as a scapegoat it’s people genuinely questioning why yet again we failed dismally to put a performance in and we’re not prepared with the right mindset and rightly so.

Imagine expecting a coach to do his job effectively!!

Think gale missing is a big factor, he's been brought in for accountability I think he d of snapped a few out of there slumber.

I'm willing to be patient abit more with Hodgson as I think once we have the I jured lads back in a week or two we l look a different team with a different attitude.

I'm the meantime he's really got to dump the ones mentioned and play his most effective team with the correct mentalitys.

After this season we have Houghton, Shaul, Bowden, Johnstone, Mau, Reynolds out of contract hoping Hodgson makes 5 solid signings with the right attitudes to add some good depth to the squad and get rid of the erratic inconsistent culture once and for all

considering Hodgson criticised himself before the season for some of his bench selections and rotation last season he doesnt seem to have learned much.
If he doesnt make the obvious changes for Leeds and stop this love in with Johnstone and stubborn attitude about moving Connor to half back whilst Gale is out then he loses most fans support

If he does move Connor to halfback who would you want at fullback because if he puts shaul there then we will have the problem of when Connor gets it wide to the supporting shaul the attack will just stop .

Whatever people may say on here Shaul is still a decent full back but he is not a winger.
We all agree he doesnt have the link up play of Connor but then again Connor doesnt have the pace of Shaul and i would say Shaul is the better defender of the two
Its our best option at the moment to win matches whilst gale is out moving Connor to half back and Shaul to full back its just that Hodgson seems to have decided Connor at full back or nothing and thats a huge mistake.
Dont forget we have also seen Connor throw a pass into touch and had passes intercepted and remember its not like we didnt score tries when Shaul was at full back even though his link up play was limited.

I can understand what you're saying but scoring tries suprisely doesn't seem the problem at the moment 14 in 2 games and with Connor assisting in 8 of those I don't see why hodgson would wanna change that. Personally I think It's his usage of the interchange bench and obviously the attitude of certain player's that needs to be addressed

It certainly will with only 5 more matches to go for each team before it forecasts the probable finishing order of the teams at seasons end.

Has Schofield given his full prediction yet? I only read of his top 3 prediction of 1 Saints 2 Catalans 3 Leeds.

You’ve totally missed my point, maybe I wasn’t eloquent enough. I heard enough bleating about Cas being under strength but we’ve got plenty missing and Hodgson has to go with what he’s got. I’m sick of hearing certain people spouting about their biased view. Connor has to stay at fullback. Shaul and Johnstone should be nowhere near the first team. We went 10 mins. With 12 men and didn’t concede but that defensive stint took its toll later on. Criticising a coach for playing a prop for 20 mins. on his long awaited non match fitness debut is ridiculous. I agree he should have gone with Bowden instead of Johnstone. If and when he can play his first 17 and we get stuffed, that’ll be the time to slag Hodgson.

Noooo. It’s just that you’ve decided Connor should be playing stand off. Thank god your not the coach. Shaul looks overweight, something you slagged Tag off for, very unkindly, I might add but you get bees in your bonnet and spout on and on, don’t think anyone who really cares about our team takes you seriously. Do you actually watch games live? Forming an opinion on a teams performance, from listening to a radio commentary, is ludicrous.

I'm actually not sure what point you are trying to make then as you definitely made the point that BH is being made the scapegoat which he isn't. Fans have questioned him after the debacle at Cas and quite rightly as it was simply not good enough. Yes I agree we still have a number of players out but we still had a good enough side to put a performance in which we simply didn't. We were pretty awful from the mistake in the first 3 seconds and that continued throughout the 80mins. No one from what I can see has criticised BH for playing Evans for 20 mins (I even stated I can understand him doing that) but questioned why if he intended doing that he didn't go with Bowden on the bench instead of having both Lovodua & Johnstone, even you agree that was a mistake in your post above.
Unfortunately BH's use or lack of use of the interchanges last season was poor and he himself has admitted he made errors with that last season yet on Sunday again his poor bench selection and use of the bench cost us.
That's without getting in to why we just didn't seem to look up for the game and line speed that was so slow just didnt seem to get addressed we allowed Cas to march us down the field with ease which on a short pitch kills you. In truth Cas were pretty poor themselves but we kept handing them opportunities.
It isn't that we got beat that has annoyed/frustrated us all (as we all know we have no devine right to 2pts) it is the manner of the defeat that;s bothered everyone and Sunday like I posted earlier we did more to lose that game than we did to win it.

I’m cranking up the 9 match barometer like Mystic Meg and her special head scarf

Anyone consider that Bowden wasn't 100% fit to play (with the next game 4 days away) ? - No chance.

” We had some players who were carrying niggles and didn’t train towards the back end of the week, and that showed.

I’ve sort of kept my council on the Cas away game, I did think a lot of opinions pre game were a little over confident to say the least, frankly regardless of who we have playing/missing, or who plays where, doesn’t matter a jot to me as long as we give all we have, that’s always enough for me, regardless of any results, on this occasion, we were. dumb, at times lazy and lethargic, so very disappointing.

Warry overturned at home by a very under strength Cats team, Wigan very nearly losing to Toulouse etc. thankfully it’s not just us.

On the game itself Jake was poor by his standards, and unfortunately when he’s not right, we’ve got not much else. He’s still the best player on the park, even after that.

Joey looks a breath of fresh air, but without wanting to add more pressure to his decision making, maybe BH could of left him at dummy half as he was looking good there, instead of allowing Danny to resume when he returned, and moving Joey back to the pack, we definitely lost something when this happened, I think I remembered that correctly, apologies if I’m not right, not read or wanted to see much about the game.

Jamie is not a winger, anyone who went will know this.

I have a different take on most regarding the balance of our team, not a knee jerk reaction from Sunday though, I know it’s probably a monetary pipe dream, but I’d love to see a top class full back causing destruction joining the line like Ben Barba, and Jake mastering the halfback position with a running scrum half, there is no earthly reason Jake can’t control a game from six like he does when in attack mode, his defensive frailties would then not be so obvious.

Some quite good posts on here recently, many of different opinions, Headingley next to the umbrella end.


It’s a long drawn out problem which our club hasn’t or couldn’t address, attitude, or mental strength, we’ve a soft underbelly which continues to haunt us.