Juan Cornetto wrote:
Big effort from Leeds tonight and a good come back after a drop in form and losing key players to injuries. In my book we lost it rather than Wigan won it. Sinfield with his usually goal kicking would have won it. His first half last second gift try was typical of his off form timing at the moment but I can forgive that as he scored an important try himself. Whereas Bailey's contribution to the Wigan scoreline I find difficult to excuse.
Wigan seemed to get most of the 50/50 calls and I thought we looked well prepared and handled their much lauded attack very well. The two youngsters stood up well and must be allowed the odd mistake. JJB and Kylie were immense and I thought Clarkson did a lot of grafting. Vickery did all that was asked of him and Burrow made some good runs and McGuire showed that despite a loss of pace he still has the class.
Considering we were without our 2 best metre making forwards and top tacklers we did ok against their pack. In the end it was mistakes that cost us the game but I can live with that as we can put that right. And well done to Brian Mac for his preparation and motivation.
All credit to Leeds for their tack ticks in this match. Making us go much more down the middle and cancelling out a lot of our most effective and productive, wide play attack. Leeds was well up for this and treated it more like a cup semi than a league game. They showed how they can raise their game much more than most other side when they really want to. I think the lack of a really tough game in the lead-up to this one put us on the back foot a bit, but I think we did just shade the win (well I would wouldn’t I)
