Agree it seemed Long's kicking game in the 1st half was good but 2nd half seemed to turn average at best

Leeds have shown that Sts can be 'rope-a-doped' two years running. Sts simply don't have that many points in them if the opposition stands firm.

The decision to play three wingers was a risky one but it worked.



Hall, Donald and Meli all stood up for us and played their part.

Long and Pryce were clueless in attack, they were just putting bombs up that Webb was taking all night. The odd one wasn't taken(Hall-Senior gave away penaly) but that's all they were doing, Wilkin put the kick in for their try which was very fortunate but they didn't really look like scoring many points and haven't for weeks now.

You kicked better and your bench made much more impact than ours especially Kirke and Burgess. That was the key to the game shift. That and Meli/Gardner's errors either side of HT. I might have fancied us if we led 8-4 for a bit but we didn't



You made fewer mistakes as well. Some dropping the ball in sets of 6 but nothing like the ours as mentioned above. You were deserving of the win - true I was disappointed with the Smith decision but at that stage I felt the game was slipping away already.



As for us, we seem to be more Bulls-esque than ever but we don't have the size or the finesse [even the Bulls had a bit with the Paul bros and Vanikolo to kill top quality teams when it counts.

yes, agreed.

The problem for saints is that leeds have found a way to WIN.



Underdogs or favourites they just have the knack of being able to do it.



They absorb the early onslaught from saints then hit back and saints just don't have an answer.



Saints were able to gain good metres and on many occasions penned us well in our own half but our kicking game continually turned them round.



Our kicking was immense.



The kicking has been key in all our grand final wins apart from 2007.

You need to find an alternative to that second man play with the pass behind dummy runners that hits either Pryce or Wellens chipping into the line. Teams have worked it out now.



Last year there were some bits of variety thrown into it such as hitting one of the dummy runners with a flat ball, but that seems to have disappeared and teams know they can slide to cut down the space on the outside.

Yep

I was suprised that Saints persisted with that play since it was obvious from the game at Headingley that we'd figured out how to nullify that. I was expecting a lot more variety but it never happened and that is down to either the coach or Long & Pryce

Was Pryce playing?? As opposed to just being on the pitch and wearing a shirt?