: Mon Mar 02, 2009 9:55 am  

I really enjoyed the game, even though we were being well beaten. It was great to see us playing against such a good outfit. It will give the players something to aspire to. Best aussie side to come to the UK in recent years.

: Mon Mar 02, 2009 9:57 am  

and it just reminded me of how i hate aussies.
for all the right reasons of course

: Mon Mar 02, 2009 10:00 am  

I thought leeds tried to play too much 1 out rugby until the last 20 min.Everytime they got the ball out wide they looked a different team and caused manly all sorts of problems,but why wait till till the game has gone to do it???

: Mon Mar 02, 2009 10:05 am  

Tony Soprano wrote:

I thought Diskin played well in very tough conditions and we certainley lost what little shape we had whilst he was off the field, haven't watched the game back yet so may have a different opinion later.

Diskin did have a good game with ball in hand.

However, I run out of fingers counting the number of missed tackles he made. Poor effort in defence from him.

: Mon Mar 02, 2009 10:06 am  

No complaints from me. Beaten by a far better side. No team in this country or (probably) the NRL would have beaten that Manly team. Although I keep asking myself would the game have turned out different if Ablett didn't make that stupid mistake at the beginning of the second half. I doubt it to be honest.

Oh and I think Peacock really let the side down last night not just through his poor discipline, but his lack of bottle to take the ball up instead of blindly throwing a hospital pass to Burrow.

: Mon Mar 02, 2009 10:06 am  

DISA wrote:

Diskin did have a good game with ball in hand.

However, I run out of fingers counting the number of missed tackles he made. Poor effort in defence from him.

Its quite out of character for him too. Defence is usually top notch

: Mon Mar 02, 2009 10:08 am  

Eccleshill Rhino wrote:

I'm with Gareth here - Manly were awesome on the night - their physicality and skill was a delight to watch. If we had played them when they were match fit they would have put 50 past us such was the gulf in ability.

What was impressive to me was the lack of errors from Manly and the they way they did the basics so well - their passing and running off the ball was something else and Orford's kicking - both Sinfield and McGuire take note. The speed of Manly was 25% above Leeds on the night - their lack of error was all the more impressive because of that.

By contrast we looked laboured slow and clueless for most of the game - one out rugby might be sufficient to knock off most clubs in SL but against a top side with a solid defence we made little impact.

It shows you cannot play against a top side without your best players - losing Burrow would have had little effect in my view but given Diskin's dismal performance Buderus would surely have had a positive impact.

Questions must be also asked about Peacock - this is the second game in four where he has been off the field for fighting - teams will soon start to niggle him to get him off.

Manly - what a side well worth the admission money - great to see RL played at the very highest level

I've still to watch it again but I thought Diskin played well last night,other than that I agree with the above.

: Mon Mar 02, 2009 10:10 am  

I was proud of the lads' efforts, Manly were very good, a joy to watch as a RL fan.

: Mon Mar 02, 2009 10:23 am  

Harborne Saint wrote:

I thought Leeds toughed it out quite well in the 2nd half - it looked fairly bad early in the 2nd half but you stood up and scored some good tries. Not many SL sides would have done that.

What is worrying for British RL is that the most dangerous man on the field for Leeds by some distance was Lautiti, who had a great game. I fear if Saints were playing our most dangerous man in this type of game would probably be Puletua.

What I am trying to say is that we seem to cream ourselves about British RL talent a bit too much - your typical Aussie NRL player is miles ahead of his British equivalent in terms of speed, skill and balance - games like the WCC merely highlight this. The sooner people like Eddie and Stevo realise this the better.

Jamie Lyon was not outstanding for Manly last night but looked good in patches - he will be awesome if he comes back to SL - another example.

Pretty well summed up. Although i thought Smith was pretty decent.

: Mon Mar 02, 2009 12:22 pm  

I did think Smith had a good game - certainly your best on the nite with Ali