Ok, here's my take on what happened this afternoon. Firstly, and here is where I come across as a bit of a killjoy, I think it is wrong to overlook one or two important factors in the result. So, firstly the caveats before the celebration of the brilliance.
This was not a full strength York team. It was hit by injuries and unavailability. By all accounts they were struggling to put a match day 17 together. It was a bare bones selection bereft of several senior players with considerable SL experience.
Secondly, York are playing badly at the moment. They are clearly a team without confidence. Their recent form has been poor. A much stronger York team on paper lost last week to Bradford, yes, Bradford. If ever there was a worrying sign as to where you are at as a team at present then it is a loss to Bradford.
Thirdly, there are better teams still to play this season. Opponents will be more physical than York and the games will be quicker with much faster and harder defences lining up to kill space and slow the play the ball. Core skills will be much better tested than today. Those will be games where decision making will have to be split second fast and accurate. Today, time on the ball was leisurely. Lets not kid ourselves as to York's limitations.
Despite all this, poor teams, and York were a poor team today, have to be put to the sword. Leigh had not done this all season, until today. Regularly putting 50 or 60 points on opponents in recent weeks has masked the fact that we have not been playing at our very best. Just listen to our coach's post match interviews every week. He has not been satisfied, often assessing dominant performances as no better than 7 out of 10's. So, today, the result and performance has been coming but, boy did it come with a bang.
This Leigh team has so much quality and for me, they have just not been getting close to where I feel they can be. However today, the handbrake was clearly off from the first minute. There were off-loads a plenty and the ball was being given some serious air time in some of the passing moves. Support play was great and the game was played at an amazing pace combined with a brutal physicality
This was one of the best attacking displays I have ever seen from the cherry and whites. More worryingly for our future opponents this season I don't think that we have either finished improving or finished demolishing sides.
Our half backs were superb today. When did we last say that, if ever. VL on this forum has been raving on about Lam junior and today I think that we got more of a sighting of what we can come to expect. He looks very tasty and given the position he plays in he will be pivotal in what we do in the play-offs.
Some rival fans have looked at our results over the past few weeks and concluded, from a distance, that form wise Leigh have plateaued. I don't think we have at all. We have been bedding a new player into a key position and it seems to be coming off. Today we played total rugby from all over the pitch and there were very few errors.
We are moving forwards and we are getting better as a team. Everyone else in this division, watch out, Leigh are no longer just a brutally efficient one trick pony who will beat you with their physicality and speed through the middle. Today we saw an exclusive of a very impressive plan B. Future opponents watching today's showing would have found it just a little bit scary. There are very few crumbs of comfort or grounds for optimism for them to take from viewing this afternoon's total rugby performance.
All in all, things seem to be coming together quite nicely. Bring on the play-offs.
his first in five years. Delighted for him - just as sound a bloke in the flesh as he comes across as in “virtuality.”
