The long awaited partnership of Burns and Walsh is rather underwhelming to say the least. I can't recall either of them taking the line on today. Burns is OK in defence but Walsh is offering very little in any department. On the bright side, Turner is becoming quite a handful.

I agree but we have to give them time to gel. Walsh hardly played in 12 month after a shocker of a injury. Can't call them for few weeks yet as walsh works on fitness and time to gel.

Walsh was like a passenger today in defence. He was stood out on the wing all game and was weak in the tackle but that's down to getting confidence back in his ankle.

I'm sure if walsh can get 4 games under his belt he will come good.

Our half backs didn,t work to control anything for most of the game, Wilkin was calling the shots hence Man of the Match. Don't know if Widnes put pressure on Walsh, if they did, it worked. Also Walshy seemed to be limping after the final whistle.

In a perverse kind of way we are victims of our own success. When Cunningham asked Long and Walsh to spend time coaching Wilkin as a tactician and kicker I really don't think they were expecting him to be anything more than a functional and very temporary fix. They certainly couldn't have predicted that he would become more influential than Burns - and on current form even Walsh.

Unfortunately this has now left us with the rather large problem of having too many tacticians on the pitch. We can't tell Wilkin to stop because he's our most effective player. We certainly can't tell Walsh to stop given that he is effectively our marquee player.

Which leaves Burns - who just happens to be one of our fiercest competitors.

It's a conundrum.

I don't think it's a negative having too many cooks so to speak. The most successful sides have 2 or 3 players who can run the show. We certainly thrived when we had the likes of Long, Martyn and Shorpe running the show in their heyday. Leeds have done well in the past off the likes of Sinfield, McGuire & Burrow.

They're just gonna take time to settle. It's certainly nice having a few playmakers again.

The problem isn't really whether or not they will settle down. Given time I'm sure they will. Unfortunately we don't have time. Walsh's injury and then subsequent absence has really put us behind the eight ball for remaining games during which all three can learn to work together effectively.

When Vea is back he can play as a ball playing loose forward. Now a quite effective pivot and tackles very well.

Walsh and Burns had reasonable kicking games, Roby and Wilkin had the passing game. Something they need to work on over the remaining 4 games before we go into the 8's.

I thought Wilkin excelled at a more traditional second-row role today. He ran with real vigour, and was our most aggressive defender. Some of his lines were also Wilkin of old. He can still ship it, and it's nice to have that option. Walsh's kicking was very good IMO. He almost always found the ground, and there were some lovely kicks in there. I don't blame him for not wanting to take the line on and get clouted. If I'd had the injuries he's had, I'd be a bit nervous too. But he's going to have to sort that out, as we can carry an effectively non-tackling scrum-half as long as he's doing great things with both boot and hand offensively.

Burns I find puzzling. I don't fault his effort. I'm just not sure whether he's making a half-back contribution, or some sort of utility forward/back.

We are indeed behind schedule, but hopefully Cunningham is letting Long get to work with what is now our midfield attacking triangle, and plotting some more creativity.

Wilkin is the kind of player who causes headaches for the coaching team. He's not the type of forward who you can just drop into any old side and he'll perform. To get the best out of him in the back row you really do need to surround him with some big earth movers who can take the burden of yardage making off his shoulders. You couldn't put him in, say, Wigan's pack. He'd be getting clattered each set of six.

In many ways we wasted some of Wilkin's best years asking him to play a role he simply isn't cut out for. You can't even begin to compare the Wilkin of the past 18 months to Wilkin in the five years leading up. It's night and day.



I'm not even sure Walsh can fully recover from that injury. It was a bad one the type of which has hurt careers in the past. Realistically, even if Walsh had returned on schedule and stayed fit we had absolutely no right to expect he'd be the same Luke Walsh AT ANY POINT this season. A complicated break/dislocation such as his takes 18-20 months to fully recover from.



Burns is either suffering from a chronic injury or - more likely - his legs have gone. I saw him as a youngster and he could certainly shift. I think it's the same problem Long hit when he turned 30 and the fast twitch fibers in his thighs started dying off.



I'm not worried about creativity. Right now we are far better off in that department than five minutes into the GF when the total number of playmakers on the pitch amounted to a big fat zero. The big issue now is nursing our exhausted back line through to the playoffs. I'm not sure we have sufficient strength in that department as things stand. We certainly can't afford any more injuries.

Lets not forget it's only a few weeks ago Burns got his face caved in. Running where the arms are flying maybe playing on his mind, like Walsh's ankle is playing on his mind.

We had hooper who played stand off for years and was known more for his ability to be competitive and aggressive than he was as a skilful stand off in the Martyn style.

Did Hooper really play stand-off "for years"? I always thought played more of a utility role. Under Millward he seemed to play several positions at once.

To be fair he was a good player. A poor-man's Tea Ropati maybe. But I'll take that over nothing. Pity he did his knee(?). Never the same after.