After reading some interesting comments about him this year, and now after the latest headline, I thought I would make up a poll. It's not exactly a piece of academic research, but it would be interesting to see what peoples views are, as there seems to be alot of negativity surrounding him lately.

Lets discuss.

He's completely lost the plot. Whether that is a long term thing, I don't know, but I hope it was purely just an arrogance thing of winning things.

It started with the youth set up 3 years ago, and progressed with the recruitment and resigning of players for the 2010 season, the complete c0ck up with the new contract offer for Lee Smith after the 2009 GF, and the absolute joke of a performance last season with non recruitment of needed players and the retention of clearly past it players for 2011.

He's delivered previously, that can not be taken away from him. But before the gullible start giving it large, ask yourself, would Bradford fans want Caisley back? would Wigan fans want Lyndsey back? both delivered on the field just like Hetherington, but it's the legacy left that I would guess would sway those fans decisions.

Hetherington and Caddick saved the club from financial ruin and paved the way for the most successful period of the club's history.

We've had dips before during his tenure - Lance, the post-Harris period etc, but this time everything seems to be going wrong at the same time - team performances, first team recruitment, declining attendances, and possible cracks appearing in the club's usually sound financial management. Perhaps it is time for fresh blood (and money), but I doubt this will be forthcoming in the current economic climate.

Should we be gearing ourselves up for a period of Bradford-esque austerity while hanging onto inadequate playing facilities? It is beginning to look that way...

I don't think it's that he's "lost the plot", I think, like many businessmen, he's underestimated the impact of the recession and not handled it very well.

In the 5/10 years before the recession hit, it was a fantastic time to run a business in England. People were spending money left, right and centre. Loans/Finance/Mortgages/Grants/Sponsorship was all readily available, and handed out accordingly. Property prices were rising and proving a sound investment. Consumers all seemed to have disposable incoming coming out of their ears. All ideal conditions to be running a Rugby Club, and a Construction Firm in.

Running a business during those times was massively different to running a business now. Yet most businesses find they've got the same people, with the same skill sets, running them as they did then. Bigger, and better run, businesses than Leeds Rugby Ltd have failed for not making changes as and where needed, and adapting their business accordingly. Nobody can 'learn' how to run a business during a recession, other than by actually running a business during a recession, and to do that you've got to be a bloody quick learner otherwise it'll be lesson learnt too little too late.

It seems to me that Hetherington, who's clearly done a fantastic job previously, is beginning to look out of his depth. Reading between the lines, it looks to me like he assumed that more funding/sponsorship/whatever would be available, and that the actual net cost to the club would be a lot less than it was going to be in reality. A smarter businessman would've picked up years ago that may be the case, and perhaps held off announcing anything until he was 100% sure that the club, without any assumed help, could afford the project on its own.

It's easy to say he has been good during the good times and less-so-good during the more recent times.

However I don't have access to the books, on which ultimately is what any assessment of GH as a businessman should be based.

That said, he's always come across as though he knows what he's doing and we are a first-class Grade A club.

Totally agree mate but you know you will get people on here saying you're wrong because they wont have a bad word said about either the club or the players.

I think we about 5 or 6 players that we should be replacing if we want to challenge for title and cups over the next couple of years.

I'd say that GH needs a better PR person.

Look at it this way, would we all ask if the CEO of ASDA had lost the plot if they made a loss - NO.

But we ask it of our clubs CEO. makes a difference when your customers are supporters and not just people going through the till.

yes its a business all the same and yes business are answerable to shareholders, but not so many have the luxury of a fans forum on the internet.

The fact Leeds Rugby have (per the last accounts) a cash surplus sitting in the bank of £2.4m and are in a position to be able to survive a possible tax demand that would kill off many other sporting clubs suggests he's been doing something right.

Unfortunately for GH the recent golden era for the club has lifted fan expectations to (in the main) unrealistic levels, to the point where anything less than sparkling success on and off the field means that heads should roll and he's clearly incapable of doing the job.

The club owns its stadium and state of the art training complex. The balance sheet is healthy. It's been to numerous finals over the Hetherington era and lifted all four of the trophies available to it.

The CEOs of just about every other club in rugby league would kill to be able to make those statements about their own clubs.

Why do you have to be so patronising Andy?

Your points are 100% valid and accurate, but nobody has questioned "winning things". I don't believe the posts thus far are to do with not winning again, I know mine certainly isn't. The fact is what we are experiencing now, certainly in my case, I saw it coming in 2009 and voiced those very opinions on here. The CEO didn't or chose not to see it, and that for me is a fundamental failure in his role.

As for "trophies" that can't happen for all teams in a season, and is unlikely to happen to more than two. Leeds have slipped from been one of the top two to been the sixth, and probably lower still next season as it stands. Competing for the main trophy (GF) is all that most want, with priority on playing a good standard of rugby.

Running an RL club you have to play a long term game and that is what you will be measured on. As to whether he is an astute businessman, firstly I would point out that whilst GH is not merely a public figurehead he is not the sole person who runs the club and makes the decisions.

It is impossible for us as yet to know yet what the ground redevelopment game he is playing is. However looking backwards at "business deals" rather than player recruitment judgements it is worth noting:

1. He set up an expansion club, made it successful, sold it for decent £££.
2. He found a good partner, encouraged the partner to buy Leeds RLFC, and the pair got a ridiculous amounts of assets, just waiting to be exploited, for a pittance.
3. He has managed to make the RL club pay its way, aided by the assets that they acquired for next to nowt.
4. July 1997. He signs Daryl Powell, Phil Cantillon, Rob Roberts, Darren Fleary & 5 others (who were they again?!) for a total of £25k. Powell alone had cost Keighley £135k two years earlier.
5. Iestyn Harris - managed to effectively sell the same player twice, screwing the first buyers til the pips squeaked and getting the second buyers to "buy" him without realising it! Genius!
6. He oversaw the sale of 51% of a disastrously loss making RU venture to Leeds Met, getting them to agree to fund all the losses going forward. Then, once Leeds Met realised they'd been done out of millions, he effectively made them pay to take the whole thing back off their hands again.

What happens going forward and what the consequences of current or more recent negotiations are is open to question but his track record speaks for itself. People doubted him in 02/03 and it came good not long after. He shouldn't be given blind support but since we don't know everything which goes on at a club it's hard to make full judgements until things play out. At present there are quite a lot of open questions.

How else are we judging the performance of a Chief Executive of a major sporting club if not by the fiscal health of the club (first and foremost IMO, as without it there would be no club there at all) and the competitiveness of the team on the field?

I'll say it again - Leeds Rugby have a balance sheet the envy of just about every other rugby league club in the northern hemisphere. They've had success both on and off the field over the last 15 years.

Yes the last two years have not been at the same standard as the preceding three, but that level of performance was simply unsustainable - a look into the history of the sport should be enough to show that. When Wigan fell from their position of superiority in the 90s, they did so with massive debts forcing them to liquidate their prime asset and were fortunate that the town's football club was able to provide them with a home. More recently, they were almost relegated and only survived by breaching the salary cap.

If Leeds slide to that level then I'll concede that Hetherington has lost the plot. In the meantime I'll settle for remaining solvent and a few seasons in the 4th-7th bracket if that's what it takes - it's still a damned sight better state of health than we were under the previous administration.

The fact the club own its own stadium has little to do we GH and his abilities - he inherited it when he took over.

Fans expect one of the two biggest clubs in the league to be competitive at the highest level, is this unrealistic maybe to you Andy. Let's face it you die hards!! will not be happy until the club regains the mantle of perenial under achievers - much happier when the club had no possibility of winning anything. I cannot understand this masochistic view but it pervades through yourself, Gareth, Danny etc.

It only takes one/two bad years to fritter away 10/15 years of solid performance. The club need the sponsorship coin, but if you were a potential sponsor would you want your brand attached to a another brand on a downward spiral? I understand GH was embarrassed at a couple of corporate presentations earlier in the year when he couldn't justify a call for sponsors to sign and pay up front for 3 years worth of sponsorship other than saving inflation!! These people are not idiots why should they spend their money with a company with a CEO who seems out of touch. A major infrastructure project isn't something you say one minute has to be done and next minute you aren't doing it.

If you can point me to a club that has had a sustained 15-20 year period of success on and off the field with no dips or troughs at any point in the history of the game David, I'm quite happy to accept that this what Leeds should be achieving.

Otherwise, I don't think it unreasonable to recognise that it just doesn't happen.

Nice to know you've lumped me in with two people whose opinions on the game I respect and have a lot of time for though, thanks.

He never said 15-20 year of success did he? wasn't it "solid performance" that he said?

Whilst I said above you came up with valid arguments 100% accurate. What you fail to see as a counternance to your argument is that the solid balance sheet you talk of came on the back of prolonged success, including two challenge cup finals and five Grand Finals. How do you expect that to continue if you are not in the same finals?

Everything you talk of as good off the field will soon diminish, as we prolong with a weakened side on the field, and more importantly a ground that does not compete with most of it's competitors. Wigan, Saints, Warrington, Huddersfield, and soon to be Hull and Catalans, are already leaving us behind on the field, off it ground wise and potential they will be light years ahead. With Salford, Cas, Widnes, not that far behind in that department.

Yep, When it comes to GH, I'm firmly in the MJM/Gilder camp, and take a fairly relaxed view that he has a pretty good idea of where this club is going.

Let me ask one thing. If the Leeds Board of Directors were thinking along the lines that the £6/10 million expenditure in the Southstand, plus the cost of the Northstand rebuild didn't make great financial sense.

Would we, as fans be too upset if a new stadium to the East of Leeds, or indeed, a shared facility somewhere down the ring road Pudsey way, was the way forward?

I love Headingley, but am not blind to its many defects as regards a 21st Century sporting venture, and simply wonder, if with their business hats on, Caddick et al could get a better and more secure return on the Rhinos brand from a different location.