XIII Oceans

What then, did we learn from round two of Super League XIII?

You can’t rely on Harlequins
If there is one that is predictable about Harlequins it’s that they aren’t very predictable.  Consigned to fighting for eleventh in the league by many after folding so poorly from a position of advantage last week their trip to Hull was supposed to end in the injury-plagued pretenders gaining an expected first win of the season.   A blistering start for the visitors though was enough to shock the faithful and leave the home side starting to look down the fixture list for that first win.  At the beginning of Super League XII Quins went to Knowsley Road and came away victorious and despite Hull’s apparently decimated squad this win must rank as highly, certainly in team spirit.  How much can we read into this performance?  Quins fans do not like their team being written off because it happens so often despite a track record of pulling upsets off when they’re in a poor run of form.  It will come as no surprise to them that I don’t consider a fifteen minute attacking burst at the start of a game, that effectively wins it, any sort of reliable indicator for future form.  Matched up against an attack that demonstrated all the attacking flair of Ian Potter at his peak the week before, a fifteen point start can go a long way.  It’s credit to McDermott and his side that they managed to restrict a home side to just one score, a marvellous achievement no matter what the quality of the opposition, so I don’t want to detract from that.  However, as Warrington showed in round one, defending your line against a side who rarely attempt to pass the ball more than once in each passage of play, is no real challenge and I think for any Quins fan to look at this result outside of that context is dangerous.

Where does this leave Hull?
In a bit of a hole.  Last week I highlighted that there’s every possibility of Hull lining up against Rovers on Good Friday with just one win behind them and with Wigoon visiting the KC this week there’s unlikely to be an easy opportunity for two points.  Injuries appear to be playing a part at Hull but just how much leeway should they be given?  Each of the sides west of the backbone of England have injury problems of their own, yet remain competitive because they are not devoid of ideas in attack.  Okay, in fairness to Hull they haven’t been able to put their first choice halfback pairing out on the pitch but we are talking about Hull here and it wouldn’t be the first time that somebody has criticised them for being flat in attack.  Once Dykes and Horne appear in the side with Berrigan working at acting half there will be an upturn in Hull’s fortunes, the question for me will be just how far behind Rovers will they be by that time?

Invincible Leeds?
It’s mildy surprising that nobody has yet suggested that this current Leeds side might go through the season undefeated.  It’s not surprising that they’ve taken hold of pole position so early on in the season.  The upcoming WCC has meant that the champions have notched up three wins in a row, two of them very comfortably away from home against teams that other top six contenders would struggle at.  Having the extra game behind them may have given Leeds an edge and a chance to claim a second WCC next week has had some suggesting that it will be a peak thereafter which maintaining the same level of intensity will be difficult.  I’m not so sure about that.  In every WCC that’s happened in recent years nobody has been sure which NRL champions would show up.  There’s been awesome displays by Melbourne and the Roosters one year followed by Rhys Wesser disasters the next, leaving the fans wondering just how serious a confrontation this is going to be.  I doubt Brian McClennan is worried about whether Craig Bellamy will be using this as a preseason tool, McClennan will be wanting to give his side that taste of winning so the can build on that for later in the year when the silverware is knocking around.  Yes, Leeds have started well, they may drop off in intensity and it’s likely that they will lose a game at some point during the season but I don’t think we can expect that big a drop off in performance from them.  The highlights from their trip to Wakefield on Friday served up enough warning to me that this Leeds team is capable of repeating the feats of the Saints of Super League XI and with Castleford (A), Harlequins (H), Bradford (H), Hull (A) and Saints (A) following the WCC there’s two relatively easy games that will give them time to get back to this level of intensity before three games against pre-season contenders tell us how good this side really is.

New York atttidue can help the Giants
One thing that struck me during Saturday’s game about Huddersfield and that’s when they get their physical game going they can challenge the best in this competition.  At Odsal they managed that for a short time in the middle of the match before the Bulls determination wore the Giants down.  There doesn’t appear to be any fundamental problems wrong with the Giants other than Chris Thorman’s capability to apply himself defensively to any level of competence at full back but I think they could take a leaf out of their American football namesakes by applying themselves in that physical manner that has been so successful for them over the past two years.  When they raised their game on Saturday there was a genuinely competitive match, unfortunately by the time they had managed to turn up to play the Bulls were more or less out of sight.  The Giants pack is not full of household names and I don’t see any big yardage makers in there.  What I do see though is a group of players that have manhandled bigger names than their own, on more than one occasion and are capable of doing that again.  There are question marks over this Giants side and in a few more weeks I think that the halves will be under a bit more scrutiny.  Until then it’s just a case of those forwards working harder and getting back to the efforts of last year to make up for the lack of big name starters.

Weekly anti-Warrington diatribe
As you may have noticed I don’t have anything positive to say about Warrington Wolves in this blog, it is rife with unsubstantiated statements about their inability to progress up the ranks of Super League into a regular playoff position.  Obviously those of you who watch the game will understand that my observations are made purely from watching the Wolves on the pitch.  I think that now is the time that I should declare myself as not having that vested interest in seeing Warrington fail to perform that other Saints fans who live/work with Warrington fans have.  I would go so far as to say that I would have no hesitation whatsoever in confirming that I want Warrington to win whenever they play Wigoon and probably always will.  Onto this week’s observation and it’s more of a question that I’d like to ask.  Do Warrington have any plans to adopt another attacking move besides just throwing it wide to Gleeson?  I know that Lee Briers can only pass effectively in one direction but can you imagine how difficult it would be to defend against them on your own line if they could give the ball as much air towards King as they do towards the right centre channel.