Gotcha wrote:
Thought Jack was pretty poor last night to be honest. However, how anyone with half a brain cell can see Golding as the same level is just ridiculous. Golding is absolutely nowhere near as good defensively, forget attack, defensively. He is constantly caught out position wise, and constantly having the team dropping out. We don’t have that same issue with Walker, even though he wasn’t up to usual last night.
I thought Golding had been making a damn good job of impact hooker previously, but last night the side really suffered with his Introduction, although I thought the lad gave good enthusiasm.
I am not questioning Walkers abilities and he certainly looks like a future star, however he is currently not as physically strong in defense as Golding and makes far fewer tackles per game as he is often not in the right place to make those tackles. I agree he looks better on attack than Golding but in practice is not consistently fulfilling that attacking promise. As I said in 16 games this season he has only made 4 clean brakes as opponents have worked him out. And in 16 games he has scored just 1 try with just 1 try assist and his average metres per carry is below that of Golding who has made more tackle busts and less errors. So as a fullback it is just not true that Walker is the better defender or indeed attacker than Golding.
Walker made a total hash of defending Wakefield's first try and at the very least should have tackled the ball carrier and for a specialist fullback this was a bad basic error. He also was no where near the correct position to cover the kick through when Moon slipped for a crucial try against us. In a game where Leeds made 427 tackles Walker only made 2 tackles with 2 missed tackles and 3 handling errors
Now I want to repeat my previous opinion that I really rate Walker and want him in the side but I also fully accept that Walker is very young and has loads of development to come. But I think he is currently suffering from having to run too often into heavy traffic from kick chasers resulting in several injuries and this has dulled his edge. Hence I would like to see him at 6 for a few games at least as I believe he could be a revelation and with Moon playing so badly we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
I agree with you that Golding has made "a dam good job of impact hooker previously" but I think you are drawing the wrong conclusion from your negative comment about his impact this time. When Golding replaced Dwyer, Singleton was also replaced by Oledzki at the same time who was turned out to be pretty ineffective and a few minutes later Cutherbertson also went off. Around this time Wakefield were able to introduce some real impact from their bench.
Golding was on the field for around 30 minutes and in that time made 30 tackles, 5 dummy runs and 6 carries with no errors and when he left the field we were still in the lead. So a lack of performance from his colleagues cannot be blamed on Golding. For the same reason when Dwyer returned he should not be blamed for us then losing our lead in his second stint, although it should be noted he gave possession and field position away with a speculative failed drop goal attempt when we should have kicked for position.
I think Dwyer had his best game for Leeds but would not have made 69 tackles had he stayed on for the full 80 which is the total of Dwyer and Golding combined (Dwyer 39 tackles and 4 missed tackles and 1 errors in 50 minutes Golding 30 tackles and 1 miss and zero errors in 30 minutes)
I would like both Walker and Golding to feature in the Leeds 17 for many years to come.
