But the buck stops with Smith when he can't get his team to play better week to week. There's very few shining lights in these performances and I'm sorry but it comes very much down to Smith otherwise what role does a coach play. So many players playing very poorly that's absolutely the coaches responsibility.

While I understand the frustration, I’m unsure if we could replace with anyone better, and at the same time I’m confident we won’t get relegated.

People might call it a wasted season, but it’s not if a lot of the young players get game time, we might have to just take our lumps. Either Smith works it out, or a new coach in comes in with a core young squad with another years development.

Yeah and we're not one of the competitive sides. It's not the results it's the manner of the truly abject performances and after 2 weeks to prepare with a near full strength side, simply dreadful.

'I'm confident we won't get relegated'. Well with cas and wakey around, what an aspirational statement that is.

Yeh fair enough it sounds bad out like that.

We’re ultimately in some sort of awful purgatory. We’re middle ground boring, with too many spine pieces away from being truly competitive.

The worry, and it’s the same worry with smith or a new coach I suppose, is that we’ve got a real chance to get this right with the salary cap becoming available and the good young players developing on the books.

That’s the worrying thing. If that was the best we could do after good rest and preparation time, it’s simply nowhere near good enough. I’ve backed Smith and the players, but I did find the way we approached pre-season bizarre, the lack of captain wrong, and the trick shot kick offs plain embarrassing. We need to completely change out approach as we are now going backwards ……

And Wigan (Twice) and Saints our next 3 games.... If Uncle Tony can galvanise the cod-heads to overturn Wigan, I'm hoping a phone call happens between him and his nephew on how to do it.

This all goes back to pre season. Everything seems to be half @rsed and lacks intensity. I like the fact that we don't want to be overly structured, but you have to have structure to fall back on in order to stay in games. It seems like Smith is trying to reinvent the wheel.

That being said, there's still lots of holes in this team. Most of the pivots are ageing and inconsistent, and the pack lacks experience. This is no quick fix and we have to be patient, but if we don't make the playoffs it will be difficult to argue Smith shouldn't go.

Already looking like a Houdini act may be needed again to make playoffs….
I’d give Smith till next year wherever we finish though……

Wigan losing to Hull and Saints losing their 4th game in 5.
We should have no problem beating them!
Mat Shaw once again giving bizarre ratings with Bentley our best player.
Sinfield did ok behind a well beaten pack.
Mik for me overrated, Lisone good going forward crap in defence, O`Connor a good back up hooker but not the answer same goes for Johnson, Smith and McDonnel not their finest games.
Austin again not good enough and Martin must be streets ahead on errors and mis tackles.
Not sure if Newman will still be here next year either.
Smith yes he needs time but how long?
Don`t think he should go as nobody available and I can`t stand another year of rebuilding.
HS2 will be done by the time we have a proper team ffs.
Our passive defence and lack of structure along with off the cuff plays only gets you partly there.
Defence, discipline and a game plan is also required in order to win trophies.

Absolutely spot on. My thoughts exactly

We have been awful im not denying that, but that doesn’t mean we will be for the rest of the season.

I wanted Smith to work but I fear he could be in trouble already.

Tonight was really poor but in the last 20 minutes we started playing with aggression some of it misdirected and born out of frustration but it was there.

It needed to be there for the first 60. I think some players like Newman are not happy with the game plan.
Leeming has gone and I fear he is at risk of losing the dressing room.

There have simply been too many games where we have not been in the contest.

Why do you think Newman wont be here next season?

Teams where the dressing room has been lost don’t try, that’s not our problem in some instances were trying too hard.