YERP jury fears sharks are circling to take a big chunk out of Leeds Rhinos’ soft underbelly

The 48-0 drubbing set ‘records’ neither the jurors nor the club would wish to see repeated.

However, the fear is of a similar result against Wigan Warriors when the team next takes to the field.

Here’s what they have to say:

Graham Poulter

Well that was a poor performance by Leeds, admittedly against an excellent St Helens team.

Leeds were without a full-strength team, so were up against it from the off.

Leeds challenged a couple of times and, maybe against a team not as good as Saints, might have won, but even that would have been pushing it as Rhinos were totally rudderless in attack and again extremely vulnerable in defence, especially on the edges and also up the middle.

Saints certainly exploited Leeds’ lack of muscle and size and made the defence look like an amateur side (no disrespect to amateur teams by the way).

I did predict in my piece last week that I feared Saints would put a big score on us, but also to be nilled, especially at home is a hard one to take - the first time that has happened in the summer era.

There was no desire by Leeds to make sure that unwanted stat didn’t become a reality. Most disappointing.

Leeds to lose against Wigan as well for me in their next game on Saturday evening!

Dianne Hall

I don’t know where to start this week. After last week’s ‘Great Escape’, we had ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’!

The good was the forced inclusion and the continued education of a couple of the young players, Alex Sutcliffe and Callum McLelland. They will benefit in the long run from some harsh lessons handed out by a St Helens side bristling with talent and experience. Also, the safe return of Tom Briscoe from his injury.

The bad, where to begin? Penalties, mostly needless, a non-existent kicking game, missed tackles and poor execution on promising plays.

The ugly being the big fat zero at the end of the game. I can’t have been the only one watching, wishing for a drop goal. At the start of the season I would have been satisfied with a mid-table finish in this rebuilding season but the players gave us all hope pre-lockdown and last week into thinking that maybe we could achieve more.

Then along comes on-fire Saints to extinguish hope of that happening. Bodies back this week hopefully!

Matt Fowler

I’m not one for criticising the team too much but when they put up a showing like last Sunday they need to be called out.

That performance was ill-disciplined, toothless and soft at best. Leeds did well to score zero points. The opening 20 minutes laid the platform. We must be the most ill-disciplined team in the league. Since lockdown we have played for 160 minutes and turned up for 12.

Saints were outstanding and that is the level we need to get to. It’s a massive wake-up call and shows what standard is required in both attack and defence.

Wigan will be licking their lips for this weekend’s game. There is blood in the water and teams will be circling to exploit our assumed soft centre. Our forwards need to take up the challenge. Wigan will steam in and ask the question, are you up for the fight? This game will show whether we are serious play-off contenders.

Playing with discipline and cutting out silly errors will go a long way; when we get that right we have a chance. A big week in training and some soul searching is required. Let’s show some fight.

Ian Sharp

I don’t know about Miley Cyrus, but Alex Warmsley most definitely came in like a wrecking ball!

I don’t think the thesaurus has enough adjectives to describe the utter shambles that we served up on Sunday.

If the game against the Giants taught us anything, we needed to start quicker and stop the barrage of pointless, stupid penalties, but we just fell right back into the same assembly line of penalties and poor decisions.

You talk to just about any Rhinos fans, and we have said for the last two seasons that we need some more weight and size in our pack.

I really am at a loss as to why the decision makers at a Leeds can’t see it. Ava seems a shadow of the player he was from last season and the start of this, and Prior was run over by the Saints pack too many times.

I could not think of one player that stood out at all in a dismal 80 minutes.

Wigan this week, another big pack and I am terror stricken to think of what we might dish up.

One thing’s for certain, it cannot be what we served up against Saints or the result will be similar - or worse.

Adam Anderson

What can we say about Sunday’s one-sided game game St Helens?

St Helens were very clinical and we were nowhere near their calibre at all.

Is that enough?

Fingers crossed that we have a few faces back this week, but we will be missing Alex Sutcliffe and Alex Mellor as well, with their head knocks and injuries from the game.

Looking at the future of the squad, Sutcliffe and Callum McLelland were the only positives from Sunday and threw themselves around the field.

We have many others like Walters, O’Connor, Holroyd, Hall and Tindall to come into the squad too, so the future is bright. Moving swiftly on to the up-coming fixture and Wigan Warriors were very lucky, in my opinion, to get a win last weekend after Wakefield Trinity’s stunning comeback.

But they will be near to being full strength when Rhinos take them on at the Totally Wicked Stadium, St Helens, so we will need to be at our very best to beat them.

Anything less and we could end up on the end of another scoreline like Sunday.

Christine Kidd

Were Leeds Rhinos that bad or are St Helens back to their scintillating best of last season?

The break in Super League has given Saints a much-needed rest and they look all the better for it.

It’s difficult to say anything positive about the Rhinos’ performance and the fact that the team was nilled at home for the first time since 1992 will hurt as much as the loss.

Four team changes from the previous week and then the loss of two players during the game meant a bit of team shuffling, but our forwards didn’t set any platform and our half-backs were suffocated by St Helens.

The game against Wigan Warriors on Saturday could be a repeat performance unless the Rhinos buck up their ideas, stop giving away penalties and improve their attack.

The effort was there in defence near the line but we were cut apart down the middle far too often.

The players need to watch videos of the games before lockdown to see how they can play.

It looks as though, so far, lockdown has not done us any favours at all.

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