I mean this in a more abstract sense. Obviously I know the players want to win, fans want to win. I’m not questioning their desire.

But, it feels like now ‘the club’ is content to plod along and try to be competitive. But it doesn’t feel like there’s any real drive, a ruthless desire, to get back to the very top. Win grand finals, titles.

Rugby league, in this country at least, isn’t exactly awash with quality teams. Well-resourced clubs like Leeds need to be pushing HARD to set standards and WIN titles.

It’s a shame where the club is. 20 years ago you could feel the desire, the drive around the club to win. It doesn’t feel like that anymore.

I’d say you’re right, we’ve definitely lost that edge in terms of how hard players will push each other and how badly the club wants to be in and win big games.

Culture starts at the top, and we’ve accepted mediocrity for too long. It also eats strategy for breakfast, and whatever strategy we’ve employed the last 7 or 8 years has fallen victim to our culture.

We are in a never ending transition period until the people continually making poor decisions at the top are replaced. We don't need to keep swapping the coach, we need to change the people who pick the coach and buy the players. The hit rate is abysmal, we can't move forward until it changes.

I don't agree. I think the hunger is there but, in my opinion, the problem is hetherington. supufb dealing with off field stuff his on field decisions have been a disaster for years. project players, a project coach, terrible signings. everything he could possibly get wrong he has

Yes I agree Catalans have replaced us as top 3 teams challenging for dominance with St's and Wigan any of those teams could win the Gf and Wigan look like they have a great bunch of youngsters coming through and are bringing in some quality to complement, St's record speaks for itself and Catalans have a guy who will spend big money and are now a force to be reckoned with, then it's a mixed bag of also rans of which you can't ignore Leigh going well HKR are in the challenge cup final and look to have strengthened for next year Smith senior seems to be turning it around at FC then there is us and Warrington that seem to be in no man's land both clubs are failing on and off the pitch could be worse though Cas are a mess and Salford seem to be in trouble aswell.

Hm I don’t think the club has lost ambition for success but I do think our top level decision making has been poor for… 5 years?

The rot has set in towards the end of McDermott. Signings like Achurch become more common than the Garbutts; then a real string of failed project signings trying to do it on the cheap and failed marquee signings whenever we did splash cash.

We haven’t got the squad right in a long time - exacerbated by the impact COVID had on us in particular coming when it did after the stadium redevelopment.

I’m not sure where we stand financially now and at what stage we are servicing debts, but we are still being beaten by clubs who clearly have worse facilities than us and less money to spend on players too.

What the real causes of this are I don’t know bc I don’t know the club well enough but I don’t think it’s lost hunger. I think it’s a combination of some financial strife compounding poor decisions and maybe some bad luck.

The corporate £££ is king

Not winning anywhere near enough for sure. Would be great if this could be rectified with ‘more hunger’. Sadly not as simple as that…..

I don’t think the club has lost hunger, im not even sure what that means, I think we’ve had a perfect storm of incidents that’s seen us underachieve for a few years (it will come back)

End of the Golden Generation, which could have been handled better I agree.

Building of the stadium which was a big undertaking and will have affected financials and money available, but this needed to be done.

Covid, which having just built the stadium and not being able to use it properly which simply couldn’t have been factored in.

Mistakes on coaching front and neglecting the academy.

Unfortunately this will take time to iron out and its not just about throwing money at it because weve seen all to often in RL it just doesn’t work like that and the long term stability of the club is far more important than throwing money about to try and buy titles.

Thinking back to 2004, there was a massive hunger simply because it had been so long since we had won a championship.

The success that came in the wake of that year was never going to be sustained on an annual basis. The problem is *perhaps* that Leeds are big enough to endure a few seasons outside the play-offs because of our sound financial foundations, whereas most other SL clubs can't do this (the exceptions are clubs with big money backers like Warrington and Huddersfield). Saints and Wigan would surely be in a mess if they had flirted with relegation and regular poor league finishings in the way Leeds have done since 2015.

That said it's clear there is a hunger at the club, but perhaps also a greater degree of patience than those clubs that live on a more hand to mouth existence. I actually think the set-up looks as healthy as it has done since 2015. If we keep making incremental improvements to the playing squad while investing in younger players, we will get back to the top. But success often takes an almost obsessive drive and effort, and I'm not sure that is there at the club. It's also not clear from the outside whether structural changes behind the scenes are going to bear fruit after successive coaches have come and gone. Time will tell.

I think Chris makes some good points but look at Saints they also built a new stadium and have continued to produce competitive teams. They also had the break up of a golden generation/team when the likes of Sculthorpe, Long, Martin, Cunningham but still kept winning.

Lots of horsepower seems to go into the Foundation and is this a distraction from the playing side.

The club always spends to or very near to the cap so not having the money is not an argument. What is a worry is how the money is being spent. We all agree the squad is poor despite spending the cap. Who is making these decisions? The club seems so slow to react - compare Wigan's recruitment for next season to Leeds? How long did it take Saints to get a replacement for Lussik?

I have said it before it needs a director of rugby who controls all the rugby side, the structures, recruitment, academy, direction of travel. This is a key appointment the most important role in the playing side of the club. It needs to be a fresh face with fresh ideas and needs to be given a remit that can attract a quality candidate and left to get on with it.

The club needs a streamlining in the coaching/conditioning area especially in the academy. Fresh faces and fresh ideas.

IOff the field this is the best run rugby club in the UK - GH/Rob Oates do a great job especially given the dross that has been ditched up over the past few years.

https://www.insidermedia.com/news/yorks ... ial-income Asounds like the clubs pretty healthy off the field. Will that translate to investment on the field...

https://www.insidermedia.com/news/yorks ... ial-income Asounds like the clubs pretty healthy off the field. Will that translate to investment on the field...

I get the point about Saints stadium but it wasn't as big of an outlay and they didn't go into a lock soon because of a pandemic as soon as it opened. Their succession planning has been better than ours although it will be interesting in the next few years because they have a few very influential players retiring in the next couple of years.

Just on the conditioning part we have changed that last year I believe and to be fair, lack of fitness doesn't seem to be an issue with the squad.

The stadium thing is a distraction - we have marquee players and we are spending to the cap - not sure how the issues around the stadium impacted that unless its in the cost of the coach? Given what happened to Furner perhaps our choices are limited. We pay top dollar sadly we seem to overpay e.g. Tetevano, Merrin for these players.

We would be both very surprised if it takes Saints 7/8 years to make the transition from their current side to a new competitive one. They seem to have much more success with their signings from the NRL - perhaps Saints is more attractive proposition than Leeds these days.

We just don't seem sharp enough - how did Olpharts end up on a 3 year contract at Leeds. He is so good we play a second row forward in the centres than play him!! It is not as if he was an overseas player who couldn't settle - I know Cas is another world but!!