what I posted on the Leigh forum
I will start by saying I have not been to a live Game for 10 years or so after being an home and away Leigh fan for the previous 30 years my wife is a Warrington fan and as a treat we decided to go and really enjoyed it.
What can I say Leigh had a lot of endeavour but were totally outclassed by Warrington. The Match wasn't played as a friendly, it was a tough hard game ,and although I don't like saying it, Leigh looked a bit lightweight .I am sure they will bounce back from this ,and there were a few players that stood out for Leigh -Gareth Hock looked class ,but as we all know its his temper he needs to sort, but you can't deny he has no fear and if you took that aggression out of him he would be half the player. Fui seemed to have lost too much weight to me ,he looked small at the side of the Warrington Props .
Ridyard and Higson had good games and im sure Leigh won't play against many teams of Warrington's class this season. The game sadly had the look of the end of season games last year and Leigh will have to find a way to play at Super league level if they are to come up at the end of the season. I am not totally sure playing teams like Batley etc week in week out puts them in a good position to play against the bottom Super League clubs at the end of the season ,I hope im wrong ,but there still seems a massive gap between a full strength Super League side like todays Warrington and a great championship side. All in all still a very enjoyable change, and something I've not done for a while - The Leigh crowd were awesome, and I felt out of place stuck in the middle of all the Warrington fans, but they like all rugby crowds put up with the odd away fan in with them ,what a great game Rugby league is .
come on you Leythers
p.s I think looking at your side ,it will be Warrington's year this year

I've managed to miss both friendlies so far but what I've read on here is very positive. It's certainly left me very excited for the opener. However, let's not get carried away. They're only friendlies after all and from memory, last year we battered KR 40-0 and also nilled Widnes. Cannot wait to see Gidley and Sandown together though, the same goes for our back row.

Agree we might need to temper our expectations based on last pre season's results, but, there were a lot of positives yesterday all over the park particularly for me Sandow, Gidley, Evans, and Currie. Clark played well and for his 65 or so minutes and we looked more inventive than last season admittedly against a Leigh team looked more interested in niggle than RL as the game progressed.

I know that we are all getting a year older and I'm stood next to Charlie Winslade but this squad look decidedly fresh faced with game time if we keep them fit, healthy, interested and together this team has a chance (that's the mockers well and truly put on it)

Surprised no-one has mentioned Penny who didn't put a foot wrong at fullback. His positioning was excellent.

Jordan Cox could be a sharp bit of business as well.

Cox is quick for his position, has that same running style Fozzard had.

I have a few pies on my Facebook and one of them mentioned how we nilled them pre-season in 2013, too. I can't recall it though.

Well I thought that was a really good match to watch - apart from the last 15-20 minutes. Lots of hard running and tackling and definitely not a friendly. And it looks to me as though the starting 13 were picked with a view to the Leeds match, barring one or two changes due to injury etc. Russell was due to play FB but he must have picked up an injury or illness as he was replaced by Penny. Gidley and Sandow were leagues better than what we have seen for some time, and Gidley looked a standard above most of the team, despite his age. He has put on a bit of speed since Widnes and carved up the defence a couple of times, not to mention his distribution and kicking, both of which were immaculate.

As already mentioned, Rhys Evans and Ben Currie were very good value. Evans has put on a lot of speed, in fact I don't think I have seen him run as fast as this for a long time. Gone are last seasons plaster strips up the side of his legs, and he looked hungry and aggressive in defence as well. Currie was all 'rugby brain', picking clever angles to run and timing his passes to draw the defender. He also produced one brutally fast run down the left flank for a well earned try. In contrast Jack Hughes looked as solid as a rock in defence and seems to have put on a fair bit of muscle from last season. I have not seen him make many breaks as yet but hopefully that will come.

The bloke next to me said he thought it was a very young team, but that was before the youngsters managed to finally get onto the pitch - King, Philbin, Dwyer, Jullien. They defended well but didn't have too much time to impress. From what little we saw however, Dwyer failed to make one of his characteristic scoots and was swallowed up by the big leigh pack several times. Julien's defence is very, very good. As for the old lags, I thought Hill was still a couple of weeks away from game speed and fitness, Ben Westwood perhaps also, or was he showing his age ? Atkins was Atkins with some wishy washy defence, although he did take the ball up a fair bit.

Finally, Westerman made an appearance. He is my pick (guess) for the 'best buy of the year award' ( after Gidley). I just feel he is at an age where a player thinks he has mucked around for too long and decides he is going to fulfil his potential - I don't have anything else to go on. Anyway, he looked big and strong both with the ball in hand and in defence, in the short time he was on the field, but he still has a fair bit of fitness work to get through following his pre-season op.

Westerman looks bigger than ever, is that muscle or pre seaon weight gain?
That hit he put on in the 2nd half was unbelievable, i think it was Hock or Pattison running full tilt at him and he didn't move a millimetre backwards, literally ran into a wall of Westerman.

We have plenty of goal kicking options through the side.
Gidley, Ratchford, Sandow, Westerman all decent goal kickers even Bennie.

The main thing with me though is the attitude looks better, they look fresh, they look happy, the look together as a unit.

I've got admit that on last season's showing I thought we'd made a bad move in buying Sandow. However having now seen what he can really deliver I'm both relieved and excited about the coming season.If yesterday's performance is anything to go by then we're in for a cracker.

[quote="Wire Yed"]Westerman looks bigger than ever, is that muscle or pre seaon weight gain?
That hit he put on in the 2nd half was unbelievable, i think it was Hock or Pattison running full tilt at him and he didn't move a millimetre backwards, literally ran into a wall of Westerman.

We have plenty of goal kicking options through the side.
Gidley, Ratchford, Sandow, Westerman all decent goal kickers even Bennie.

The main thing with me though is the attitude looks better, they look fresh, they look happy, the look together as a unit.

That's what struck me. They certainly defended and supported as a unit. Always someone available for the offload and the backing up was very un-Warrington like. A big change in our style of play from previous seasons. If yesterday is any indicator of what's to come, we will be entertaining to watch. Thoroughly enjoyable game yesterday, in which Leigh more than played their part. Hope their two lads who had to come off after Geno first try recover quickly.