A tremendous match indeed ,very enjoyable Mr Maden must learn to rein in His temper a little better, but He certainly sorted Higgins out with a flurry of punches all of which landed, definitely the turning point was the return to the field of Parker and Hopkins, enjoyed the drink in dirty dick's and a good chat with E.S.O.

Didn't see the Q incident very well from the Skircoate Stand and even on the tv it doesn't show up well. A very from t'back o't'sticks would've been nice.

Incidentally, did anyone notice how the sticks at the North end kept closing up ? Very strange. A bloke came out and fixed them before Leigh kicked towards that end but by the time we kicked that way they'd closed up again. Never seen that before.

I agree that the turning point was the sendings off, but I think a factor arising from them came because we lost a forward, Leigh lost a back. Coming just before the last quarter of a hard-fought (in more ways than one) match, it meant that our forwards had more work to do, got more tired and weren't able to give the half backs as much room to create. That combined with yet more poor ball control allowed Leigh to build an in-the-end deserved victory.

One of my three non-regular companions commented as we came in that he thought posts were supposed to be parallel. I also thought that refreshment bars usually stocked up before a match so they didn't run out of everything. Perhaps the Shay ought to pull their socks up if they host another final - it's becoming a niceish ground otherwise.

Exactly. Like swapping a pawn for a queen at chess.

Is that a lame excuse for defeat?

I cant remember them closing up but i did see the bloke messing around with them then again i'd had alot to drink

No idea what the problem was though nobody mentioned it around me

Turned the game, definitely.

After watching the game yesterday on Premier Sports , I would call Ste Maden a "Queen ", or even Higgins a "Pawn ", more like a PRAWN Charlie told you the Leigh forwards were FAR superior to the seagulls ,and we just UNPLUGGED THE JUKEBOX .