: Fri Mar 13, 2009 11:34 pm
Leeds fan in peace:
That was certainly our best performance of the season (coming off the back of poor performances against Manly and - in an attacking sense - Warrington). The movement around the ball carrier in attack was certainly more purposeful and our kicking game was massively improved.
I think that a lot of quick balls caught you out. Not to the extent that we were scoring directly from them, but because we were getting big gains of 10 yards or more fairly cheaply. I've always been on the view that Noble teams, particularly at Leeds, like to slow the game down to a snails pace and (thankfully for us) Ian Smith didn't allow that to happen.
That Wigan team should be better than that. Hock was well marked out of the game for me - whenever he had the ball there were 3/4 Leeds shirts around him. The Wigan three-quarters should have been much more dominant against a very youthful Leeds back line (take Donald out and the oldest player in the Leeds 3/4s was just 22). Likewise, Mark Riddell should have been more influential given that his opposite number was a second-rower and I'm sorry, but Amos Roberts and Stuart Fielden are both a complete waste of space.
Fair comment?