Andy Gilder wrote:
In terms of for the rest of this season, or looking further ahead?
At the moment, options are limited by the long term injuries to Peacock and Ablett.
Delaney will obviously come back in, for me in place of Clarkson. McShane needs to start. If Burrow is going to be in the side it's either ahead of McGuire or on the bench.
Sutclifffe, whether he is named at six or thirteen, needs to be given some responsibility to play as a pivot rather than just a runner.
Moore comes back from Hunslet and comes in to replace Bailey.
Longer term, look to bring in an organising scrum half. Somebody in the Dureau/Dobson mould. Sutcliffe starts at stand-off, Sinfield goes to 13 and defends in the middle. Burrow operates as an interchange hooker.
Also need to find a front-rower with an offload game. With Peacock out of the side and maybe only doing one more year there's nobody (Moore apart) who can knock people out of the way and create a second phase of play.
I said I think almost 2 seasons ago that I had. A lot of respect for McDermott and I was happy to have him at the club, but I had doubts that he was the right guy to rebuild Leeds over the next few seasons. It's a difficult job. You either have to change things because players retire or leave, or you have to make difficult choices, which could be to to keep experience and loose promising youth or let go club legends. I suspect that we will only know how well he's made these choices in around 2 years time. Frankly I'm not sure how things will go.
Coaching wise I see a strong defensive side where all the players work hard, but still don't see a team organised in attack to make best use of the talent we have.
The halves are a shambles at the moment and the other two key attacking positions are worse. 6, 7, 9 and 13 are just not creative enough at the moment. I agree with you Andy, we need McShane to start and have real game time at 9, we need an organiser at 7, and Sinny back at 13 and defending up the middle where he will be far more comfortable and effective. Burrow off the bench.
Leeds look at their most organised when they play up the middle and get Delaney, JJB etc hitting those inside shoulders in the middle of the park off quick PTB's from Kylie and Peacock. But it's not scoring us a lot of points this year and it all breaks down when we get near the try line or when we hit a brick wall defence. We also make too many mistakes and overwork our defence.
Realistically we should have beaten Saints and the Wigan result could have gone either way, and many posters at the beginning of this thread had us down for a mullering. I was never that pessamistic, but I was disappointed with the Saints result. We should have routed them, but our attack simply doesn't seem up to it.
