I thought it was symptomatic of Saints whole season - Positives were great guts and character, a usually good kicking game and a good scrambling defence. Negatives were not quite enough go-forward from the pack (I suspect the stats will show we made fewer metres per carry than Leeds), and just a lack of attacking penetration. Even when we had some possession in the Leeds twenty, we rarely looked particularly dangerous to their line. Whereas when Leeds looked capable of putting together a score from a much bigger area of the pitch.
It's the attack we need sorting out next year. We need to find ways of better using Percival's elusive pace, and creating more space for Swift. But we also need to take a leaf out of Leeds's book and try to develop more of an offloading support game in the middle. A few times, particularly in the first half, we got a forward with his hands clear in the tackle, but there were no runners coming through for the offload.
On the night, a fair result (maybe without the last try which was just a bit silly and unrepresentative). Walsh is probably feeling a bit gutted about missing the conversion right now, though.
