Leeds v Catalan : Sat Mar 25, 2023 2:57 pm  

What a joy to watch! Halves who attack the line with pace and can throw passes to create tries. Wingers with genuine pace who are a danger from anywhere on the pitch, and spine players who have the pace to go from dummy half and break the line. Take note Ian Watson, that is how you build a rugby league team,. not 20 quality forwards who you rotate each week to lay a platform you don't have the players to exploit.

Re: Leeds v Catalan : Sat Mar 25, 2023 3:30 pm  

I totally agree with you a great game to watch. Not up the jumper plodding like our team, five drives and a kick to nothing. These two teams showed how to play rugby league, and Salford are not far behind either.

Re: Leeds v Catalan : Sat Mar 25, 2023 7:07 pm  

That game was certainly a great example of how to play entertaining rugby and get the crowds back into our stadia.
I don't know how Channel 4 manage it, but they regularly seem to be able to pick a really exciting game for their broadcasts.

While it does seem that there has been a general shift towards taking risk and trying to play a more open, free flowing style of rugby these days. It has been made all the more frustrating for us, as we have managed to recruit a squad not wholly equipped to take part.

I did think that I saw signs of a willingness to 'open up' a little bit against Saints on Friday and I can only hope that this was the first indications of a shift in mentality for us. Because without such we are going to get left behind, both in the table and in the game itself.

You only have to listen to the disquiet of the fans leaving the stadium - even the Sky Sports pundits are 'skirting' round the issue.
Can it be that we're all wrong and 'The Process' trumps all?

Re: Leeds v Catalan : Sun Mar 26, 2023 12:38 pm  

Well Ian Watson seems happy with the style and seems convinced it's only a matter of time before it starts to pay off, More to the point is K Davy happy with things, He can see like the rest of us what is happening on the field with other teams, he can compare it to our plodding style of 5 tackles and kick. the amount of money and backing he has plowed in to the club he deserves better than what he is getting .
We do lack pace ( and skill) in certain vital positions but this is the squad that the coach has assembled by and large so don't see much changing by way of players so i recon we will just continue with the boring pedestrian style we are dishing up interspersed with the the odd bit of class now and then from individual players, I don't think we will be in any danger come the back end of the season but its difficult to see us being anymore that just making up numbers, The sides with a bit of pace will beat us most of the time and we will never ever entice people down to watch while we play our current style, For me the ball is in Ian Watson's court or maybe K Davy's

Re: Leeds v Catalan : Sun Mar 26, 2023 2:00 pm  

I don't know who he is trying to kid (maybe himself) with his constant talk about being 'nearly there' and 'just needing a few tweaks'. We have had some bad luck with injuries but lets face it Theo Fages hardly sets the world on fire when he is in fit. The truth of the matter is we don't have the right players in the right positions and that is purely down to his recruitment. For his plan to work we have to be perfect in defence for the whole game and rely on the opponents making errors, but the fact is we simply don't score enough points to give ourselves a cushion to guard against the inevitable brilliance of other sides attacks. As he is finding time and time again, other sides have much more capacity to score tries on the few occasions that present themselves due to a better quality of player in their spines and out wide. Against Warrington Thewlis destroyed us with his pace, against Wigan, French used his pace and attacking flair, and against Saint Helens it was Hurrell on the back of great handling and incisive line attacks from Lomax and Welsby.