Leeds fan in peace.

You have a great squad, but I'm not at all surprised to hear that Walters isn't cutting it. He was massively over-hyped by Sky in his last season with us - Jon Wilkin even claimed he was our best player. I would have liked to have kept him at Leeds given our lack of size in the pack, but there are some reasons why you should be cautious with him.

Before Rowan Smith joined Leeds, Walters was knocking about the first team. He'd occasionally score a sensational try running off a good line out wide, but Agar evidently didn't trust him defensively and there were some really shocking defensive lapses around marker and on our goal line.

When RS came in he quickly promoted Widnes boys Walters and O'Connor to the first team. O'Connor hasn't missed a game since because he just works hard - maybe not the most skilled or physically blessed, but he's a good team player. Smith wanted to use Walters as a prop because we were short in that position, and he looked decent going forward, but the same defensive issues occasionally got highlighted. Personally, I preferred him spelled at prop - he scored fewer show pony tries but at the same time it meant he had to concentrate for shorter periods of time on the field. I get the sense that Smith wanted Walters to earn his place in the first team at the start of 2023, and he took umbrage that he wasn't an instant pick like O'Connor, and was also expected to play prop instead of second row.

He signed for Wigan just before Smith brought him back into the team. It was disappointing, and he scored a few more eye catching tries in the games that followed (I think he got away with bashing up a Saints player in the last game we won against them too). However, as the season wore on, his form actually got pretty poor - throwing silly passes and offloads, more weak defence, and too many penalties given for high shots. When the new rules about tackle height were announced, I thought Leeds had dodged a bullet - not because the guy is too tall, but rather because I have the impression that he doesn't have the attitude to be a top professional and adjust his game accordingly to suit the rules. I could be wrong, but I'm not surprised he hasn't set the world on fire yet. Nsemba seems a much better prospect.

There's a lot of rugby to be played yet, in effect we are only just entering the final quarter of the regular season. Every team will lose matches, we just have to make sure that we lose less than the others.

Or just stick to the same number of losses.

Given our game in hand, if we can put Leigh to bed, then we're 2pts clear again.

Probably, but then again the last game we lost last year against Wakey was in early July. I don't think we can be [ithat[/i confident that Wire will drop points before the season's close. Tough games at Leigh and Saints but they're be going big favourites in all the others.

Its in our hands but easy to say, hard to do.

We have Leigh, Saints at Magic, Cats away, HKR at home, all are tough. Leeds away will be tricky although Smith has picked up a ban.

If we can take care of our own form and energy and cut out the silly errors, we should be ok in these next two games. Leigh are playing well and Leeds have improved but you still look at the sides and there is a difference in quality between the 17's of Wigan and Leigh and Wigan and Leeds, especially with Leigh missing Amone and still possibly Moylan and Leeds missing Cam Smith and by the sounds of things, Oledzki.

The issues will come for us if we're short of energy again and can't rid our game of the ridiculous errors that have plagued us in the last 3 games. We did seem to pick up in both of those areas in the second half of the Huddersfield game, so hopefully we just keep that going.