It is in the sense that they had quite a few youngsters in and weren’t as physical as other teams, (although when Lissone came on we struggled with him) however whilst this allowed us to play out of our 20 a bit more and create more chances we still struggled to get points and although not overpowered this time, Croft, Akers and Miller cut though us like a knife through butter. That all points to it not just being a physical disparity but a quality one. I did think Butler was revved up tonight and the usual suspects worked hard. Natoli did well for first game of the season O Leyland had his moments ( save his kicking from the tee) and Meadows looked more lively than before but basically we are where we are a championship side in SL getting hammered every week. It really is the worst of all worlds.

Yep. This is the issue. I wonder if our squad would have been any different if we hadn't got promoted.

Ii fully expected 60 against us last night, I hopes we could at least score twice. What was very evident was difference in size between the 2 squads would say leeds probably man for man were 5-10 k bigger than opposite number.
On the performance might look different on tv but individual missed tackles leeds capitalised. Lack of impact players able to hit line at any pace.
Positives, we had spells in attack when we actually looked OK, meadows and Olli in the second half were causing problems we just couldn't finish it.
Only 2 penalties given away, and I don't think a single set restart in the game that is a definite improvement
Positives!

Well, obviously not the result we wanted. But I genuinely think there were some great positives to take from the game and news released recently from the club.

1. Natoli was brilliant. He for sure is going to add some flare to our attack. I think he will only get better over the coming weeks.

2. Oli Leyland has been doing well, I thought his kicking game was good, splitting the opposition at the back and just generally looks pretty threatening with the ball in hand.

3. Butler off the bench. It was nice to see him coming on and making some impact with decent carries and couple of big shots. I thought he looked bigger and appeared to be the more dominant like prop that we saw from him in 2019. Pretty big minutes too.

4. Bienik potentially back for next week. Could be the first time we see our 8 and 10 play together this season! If Bienik does play, I’m sure he’ll be wanting to prove a point to Hull….

5. Was good to see Sid back. Again, another physical player who can contribute to that physicality and size we’ve been missing.

6. We see it week in, week out - the boys just don’t give up. It’s not easy losing every week but they just don’t throw in the towel at all.

All reasons to be excited and hopeful for future games and definitely the second half of the season.

If we can improve defence out on the edges in particular, reduce that missed tackle count, reduce the amount of time it takes for us to settle into a game and get someone in that squad to kick conversions (I know poor Oli is doing his best) we could really start to hold our own in this league.

I don’t know, maybe I’m being overly optimistic, but I don’t think we can write-off this season just yet….

I agree with all those points and it’s nice to see a positive outlook and be reminded that there are some decent things but I do think this season is pretty close to being done. Bienek coming back, Butler delivering his potential and Natoli and Sid being in line up all improves us but I feel we lack creativity that means whilst we lose by less we’ll still lose. Perhaps we could turn over Hull, perhaps catch a middling side out towards end of the season when some of their players are on the beach but overall this season looks set to knock us back a bit I fear and prove IMG’s point for them. On the x account a number of respondents have focussed on the impact heavy losses have on getting newbies to return. I really hope the squad we have now is the result of an incoherent plan rather than incompetence but i do fear it’s the latter. I hope we are thinking real hard about next season and beginning to get things lined up or this nonsense starts all over again.

Chuck in Parata and Waine and we've suddenly got passable forwards. Time to worry about the 3/4s of course. To me they look outclassed, maybe Miloudi apart.

All of this makes for good 'what ifs'. Hull A Salford H Huddersfield H didn't need much to have turned the balance...