agreed. The transition could have been smoother, but in many respects GH had little room to move with salary cap, player loyalty and wage structure

Is that why you predicted Leeds to finish 3rd after 23 rounds and 4th after the Super 8s?

Maybe i'm missing something but could you point out where these "quite a few" were on the rl2016 prediction threadrl? All I can see is page after page of people predicting top 4 and higher. For Christ's sake, even your daft mate Sal was tipping Leeds to finish top and win the GF

Anyway... Happy New Year Gotcha. Please try harder in 2017.

Barrie Mcdermott
Ali
Webb
Senior
Scott Donald
All phased out when they had "something left" then the likes of
Feather Mcdonald & Adamson Etc moved on so it has been done in the past throw in T.Smith Powell & Mclennon i think that proves what some suggesting is anything new disloyal or an extreme move.
This phase of transition has been garbage on/off the pitch & still needs major work imo lets see if GH can recover his " no holds barred" approach.

Nice try at moving the goalposts Gotcha but when I said "nobody saw last season coming" you came diving in with "rubbish"

So me posting a pre-season prediction thread that included you predicting a top 4 finish and pretty much every other poster predicting the same, or in most cases much higher, has EVERYTHING to do with it.

Happy New Year.

Wonder who these know it all fans, certainly know it all better than GH, would have phased out a couple of years ago to make the transition smoother?

I would love to know.......

Achurch & Delaney to name 2 both of which are 1st 13 SC earners we failed to sign a HB or a quality 9 (until Segeyaro).
Also the club KNEW Sinfield/JP & Kylie were done at the end of 2015 yet tried to do it on the cheap which lets be brutally honest was NEVER gonna work after losing such big Leaders on/off the pitch.
Also before we go down the "who's available" road that's up to the CEO to sort & if needed actually BUY someone.

there is a lot of quality coming through the academy but its all 2/3/4 years away.
however all but the most deluded on here, and i'm not sure those two even believe what they say, must be worried about next season

But the question i asked was who would people have phased out a couple of years ago to make the transition smoother. Would phasing Delaney and Achurch who i believe were both mid to late 20s at the time have made any difference to an ageing squad?

As for the replacing of Sinny/Kylie and JP well lets be honest 2 of them was irreplaceable but to help the transition GH brought Garbutt in early as really Kylie's replacement. A move that benefitted us greatly in 2015 treble run. An ex State of Origin ex Kangaroo prop was signed to cover JPs loss which can hardly be described as a cheap option and given Sutty had at one point replaced Sinny in the team in 2015 (bizarrely imo) it was fairly understandable that he should be given the 1st opportunity to play in the halves. The fact that his more experienced half Maggsy got a major injury in the season opener clearly didnt help Sutty who was as ready as Sinny and Maggsy was at the same age to run the team especially after coming off a knee reconstruction himself.

Now whether these moves have ended up as success or not is pretty obvious to all but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Now i ask again who would you have phased out 2 or 3 years ago to stop an ageing team getting too old?

Come on Marty you yourself are far more knowledgable than that. You would have changed things too, and not after the event. The coach is/was and always will be a problem. The lack of leadership without Sinfield and Peacock was always standing out like a sore thumb. I know there is some blinded on here, but I do not believe the likes of you seriously believed that just because players had been part of a successful team that they could automatically become leaders as some do, they can't. The halfs were always carried by Sinfield, from a direction point of view, luxury players who needed the right player at their side. To think they could take over the reigns was naive at best, stupid at worst.

The biggest issue of all for me was planning and development, the way we destroyed the successful production through the academy we had. And it has happened, whether or not some are so blind to see it. Had we got that right, we wouldn't be where we are.

Must be a Leeds thing think the good times can go on forever and when it goes t**sup just like united in the 70's all the supporters do is moan and bitch GH got them to where they are now had 1bad season and grow up you set of winghing fu**era cos in the treble season he could do no wrong

Gotcha i personally dont believe at a club like Leeds a leader can be just brought in and signed. Even JP, who was one of the greatest leaders ever, took a year to 18 months to have any influence and to settle into the ethos of the club. Leaders need to develop at Leeds as Sinfield did.

One of the problems with the academy was for years we had a core group who was in their prime and was successful so it was impossible for certain kids to come thru, Luke Gale being a prime example.

Now its easy to say we should have phased people out but in 2015 they had the best year ever so phasing them out earlier than that would clearly have been a mistake would it not?

Whether people agree or not GHs philophsy is that if the people do right by him he will do the right thing for them and part of that is the players have earned the right to decide when to retire. That to me is a credit to the club.

Now we had an amazing group of kids come thru in early 2000s that we will never see the likes of again and part of the reason is that at the team we was competing with only Wigan and Wire to sign the best kids in the country. Nowadays other teams are trying to seriously push the junior development.

In a years time Tommy Oldroyd will have many offers to sign pro forms. In the old days he would have had 2 or 3. We both know how good that kid could be but its a different era to 15 years ago.

Although i dont want to agree with you Kenny......i do....100%.

Luckily cos of GH's management and financial wisdom we wont go the way of United or Bulls.

There is no wonder we are known as The Whinos. In truth weve not a lot to moan about really and there isnt a club that wouldnt have wanted what weve had these last 12 years.