On the passive defence, for my money Smith brought it in to A) cut down on giving away 6 agains and penalties for high shots and offside B) stop line breaks so you keep them in front of you.
He has had a pre-season to change it and hasn’t so reckon it must be the plan for 2023. It works if the other team is not very good, makes errors, gives away 6 agains etc. if the other team plays really well I think you have big issues.
As someone else said Bentley is a huge miss in that side for all the graft. He was top draw at end of 2022. Add Mik as well.
There is along way to go but the club needs to be working on a quality pack leader to replace Tetevano next year and plan what to do at 1, 6 and 7. 6 and 7 are out of contract so need to up their game to get a gig at Leeds or anywhere else.
Joined: Aug 09 2011 Posts: 1906 Location: Deepest North Yorkshire Woodland
Well played Warrington, Powell is a good coach he has assembled a good powerful squad , should imagine if they keep injury free they should be in the hunt for some silverware this season. Funny old world ,just recalling last season the majority of Warrington fans wanted Powell out. Credit to the club for resisting that clamour. As for us ,obviously we were blown away mentally and physically, didn’t expect us to win over at Warrington . But certainly never imagined that fiasco, letting hardaker go was a big mistake. Thought Smiths after match interview was extremely poor especially in view of the amount of fans who had traveled to Warrington. At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious ,failure to win next Friday will start alarm bells ringing. Or maybe they started ringing in the pre season games and smith choose to ignore them.
TheWarringtonWolve69 wrote:And to think last season you were all saying your team on paper was as good as St Helens. You are 5 years away from ever winning super league again. Your pack is soft, half backs average and backs slow.
For a club as big as Leeds are, questions need to be asked about how you have fallen so far behind
BTW, this is LeBron James the saints troll. He's no fan of Warrington and is a pain in the booty. Please ignore.
You guys were much better second half and the scores were level in that period. You had quite a few missing as far as I can see so I reckon you'll be fine.
Gazwire wrote:BTW, this is LeBron James the saints troll. He's no fan of Warrington and is a pain in the booty. Please ignore.
You guys were much better second half and the scores were level in that period. You had quite a few missing as far as I can see so I reckon you'll be fine.
What concerns me the most about last night was we looked so undercooked and lacking in intensity. They are not good signs. Let’s hope it was just one of those nights.
Joined: Nov 19 2002 Posts: 13622 Location: West Yorkshire
Backwoodsman wrote:Well played Warrington, Powell is a good coach he has assembled a good powerful squad , should imagine if they keep injury free they should be in the hunt for some silverware this season. Funny old world ,just recalling last season the majority of Warrington fans wanted Powell out. Credit to the club for resisting that clamour. As for us ,obviously we were blown away mentally and physically, didn’t expect us to win over at Warrington . But certainly never imagined that fiasco, letting hardaker go was a big mistake. Thought Smiths after match interview was extremely poor especially in view of the amount of fans who had traveled to Warrington. At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious ,failure to win next Friday will start alarm bells ringing. Or maybe they started ringing in the pre season games and smith choose to ignore them.
There’s plenty of time left, as in, the whole season for both Warrington and Leeds to switch places from last night.
Losing to Hull next week won’t start alarm bells ringing but ill be disappointed if we play as bad as last night.
Joined: Nov 19 2002 Posts: 13622 Location: West Yorkshire
Trebor1 wrote:What concerns me the most about last night was we looked so undercooked and lacking in intensity. They are not good signs. Let’s hope it was just one of those nights.
It won’t be the first or last time a team looks off the pace in round one, it really isn’t season defining.
We should know that more than most, it’s disappointing to see a lot of the twitter/facebook fans turning on Smith already.
The writing was on the wall when Handley and Fusitua were named centres.
Handley is a legend in his own lunchtime, his positioning sense is zero. He always flies out of his line and cannot tackle. I think rather than trying to be a poster boy, he needs to knuckle down. His stupid one-handed carry that he knocked on just after we had scored which completely lost the momentum was standard Handley fare.
It's clear Fusitua is here for the payday.
Roberts may be a project, but right now he's Vickery/Botham-esque. Ditto Tindall.
Myler had a shocker.
We were monstered down the middle and granted we have a fair few out - it is baffling why Corey Hall and Levi Edwards were allowed to leave meaning we have no centre cover.
I would rather have Donaldson and O'Donnell (was he injured too) in the centres.
I didn't even realise Sezer was playing. The list goes on.
BUT, a bad day at the office and we need to keep faith.
Wire played well, but their back 5 was also poor on paper.
You would like to think Tetevano, Fusitua, Austin and Sezer would be geeing them all up and putting in shifts given it's the last year of their contracts.
That's a lot of money for Smith to play with in key positions for 2024. Here's hoping it is spent wisely
Last edited by krisleeds on Fri Feb 17, 2023 10:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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