I think their game plan was to start really well as they knew if they could contain our onslaught then they had a chance.

No good blaming the ref for that one, he had to check with the VR himself.

Not from this one. I thought Charnley should have tried to take the bomb, initially being the better placed of the two. The 40/20 was a c0ck up, no doubt. Apart from that he was a threat to us throughout and, had a few more performed in the same vein, you might well have won.

Yep, he shouts either "40" or "outside", depending. I didn't hear any call, either at the game or later on the TV coverage. Still no excuse though - although it's not always easy for a fullback to see where it was kicked from...some info from teammates nearer the kicker would have been helpful.

I said that about the bomb during the game. It must have moved so far to the right when it was in the air. Sam probably shouted for it when it first went up so Charnley will have moved in field to offer him some protection from the chasers. The ball then drifted out towards Charnley's wing, leaving Sam with too much ground to make up (I still think he was a bit too casual getting to it mind) and Charnley out of position. You have to credit the kicker for such a good kick before you start criticising our players. One criticism of it is why did Sinfield have so much time to put such a good bomb up?

40-20 or not Sam had loads of time to collect the ball and run it back possibly 20-30 metres instead he opted to take the scrum (in his mind to Wigan) on our own 20, very poor decision in my mind.

True, but there again, even after his error, on a normal day we should still have been able to defend from the resulting scrum.

That's the part I just didn't understand, plenty of time to return the ball and make good yards forward rather than accept a scrum where the ball went out.

As Sinfield is kicking the ball, your left centre raises his hand and keeps it there....think he may even turn around to look back to his Full back. Centre is stood about fifteen yards from kicker. Unless he is asking to go to the toilet, I'd take it that he is signalling that the ball needs to be attended to.

Correct, after an error like that the intensity in the defensive set needs lifting, we didn't, they capitalised on ineffective tackling, it was 'one of those days', we haven't had too many over the last couple of years, lets move on.

I think Tomkins missed the 40-20 because his head was still all over the place after making the mistake for the first try. The third try where he was too busy complaining to the ref was the most unforgivable of the lot imo and was unprofessional. Tomkins is an outstanding player but he still has a lot of work to do with his attitude.

Our line defence was disgusting with three players unable to hold Ryan Bailey from scoring an easy try. Our sliding defence was shocking as well with Ben Jones-Bishop's try so easy it was painful to watch.



Leeds had a absolutely superb gameplan and made far more yards up the middle then we did but more importantly found the ground quickly and got the quick play the balls for Rob Burrow to destroy us up the middle. Add to that a far superior kicking game and Wigan were very lucky they didn't get pasted by 60.



Luckily we still have decent strike players and Leeds are also pretty poor in defence (which is why they will lose to Warrington in the final IMO). Our mistakes give them the early advantage but they were head and shoulders the better team than us, even without the Sam Tomkins fiasco.