As i highlighted elsewhere GH's loyalty only goes so far & he has shown he can be ruthless with both players & Coaches in the past even following success.
The fact the only response to last year is to bring in Parcell & Morley with 2 2nd division projects is a major concern & should be for everyone.
As for phasing out Achurch was never good enough & injury prone whereas Delaney is carrying a body shot to pieces albeit with a heart of a Lion.
GH has made tough calls & this time by not doing so has proved costly how long it continues is down to him & how soon he pulls the trigger will depend how long it lasts.

We can't have it both ways here.

Do we want to bring youth through or not? The club are giving opportunities to the fb, sutty and Lilley. How can you give those opportunities if we rush out and buy players everytime we hit a bump in the road? Also, if we don't give youth a chance how can we hope to attract top quality youth players in the future, would you want to sign for a club with a habit of buying second rate players rather than developing youth?

Yes the team is struggling and something needs to be done but is rushing out to prise a second rate Aussie away the answer? Let's be honest, we can say we should go out and BUY a player but it's not that simple. The club have to be happy to let them go, they have to want to come, we have to stump up the right package. This isn't football manager.

My bigger concern is why the heck the club has not appeared to learn from last year's errors regarding how we play. We are the living example of insanity right now.

Fallon i totally agree with you apart from the club not learning from we play. The season hasnt started yet so nobody knows how we will play. Nobody saw the offload game and style of play in 2015 til it happened. Fingers crossed we open up a bit more this yr.

Spot on regarding the youngsters coming thru. Cant have it both ways and market is dead these days.

Lets not forget also Zak salary has to be spared on our cap until he leaves permanently.

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That's a fair comment Marty, I'm going off the boxing day shambles. I hope that isn't how they are going to play but it was consistent with last year's dross so the early signs are not encouraging.

I may be wrong but my understanding is hardaker's full 2017 salary will sit on castleford's salary cap and Leeds can use that space this year. Assuming McGuire retires Leeds could recruit now and cover hardaker's 2018 salary (if he returned which looks unlikely at moment).

Happy new year to all, hope we see a bit more decent football.

It's going to be interesting over the next few years to see if the CEO manages decline effectively whilst still ensuring the club remain competitive in terms of challenging for silverware.

Up until the retirements of 2015, he's been able to manage decline effectively by only having to tinker around the edges of the squad as the youth products of the Doug Laughton and Dean Bell era provided over a decade of trophy-winning value.

If 2016 is any indication, it ain't a good start.

On the positive side, every other SL club is also having to manage decline.

The full cap will be in Cas' cap space but what if he turns up tomorrow drunk and punches Powell (not sure why i think that could happen) Cas would then sack him and he would return to Leeds. Hence the reason Leeds need to keep space available as he still has a contract with Leeds.

Thats my understanding anyway.

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I think there was a transition plan in place. In the space of 12 months the props of peacock, Bailey, leuluai and kireke was replaced with cuthbertson, Galloway, garbut and singleton.

I also think that the half back roles were earmarked for Sutcliffe and maybe Lilley. However Sutcliffe getting a major injury the thought out slightly. As does some of the signings not being up to the level we'd hoped. I think they're was a plan in place, it may not have worked, or been foolproof, but I think there was a plan

No-one wants it both ways this whole "Golden era" was built on sound quality recruitment alongside quality youngsters developed & brought through.
Nobody is saying sign Thurston or Cronk a "Dunneman" type signing would suffice or a Connolly/Furner those types don't command huge money but can make a huge difference to a transitional period.
Sinfield himself admits the influence those older heads had on his & the teams progress.
If you read the points been made everything that's been said we require has been done on countless ocassions so it isn't groundbreaking or new.

Zac is a Cas player for 2017 if he's "sacked" he's nowhere to go till 2018 mate which is when he officially returns to Leeds.

indeed. how can leeds keep cap space just in case he comes back? he's signed an airtight contract.leeds can't recall him so it's up to cas to sort him if, or probably when, he messes up

My interpretation of the SL Salary Cap means that Zak has gone on a season long loan to Castleford
Which in effect to salary cap purposes means that it is deemed as being a permanent deal for that season, therefor his full salary cap space will count on the Tigers salary cap and no room has to be left on the Rhinos salary cap

In theory Zak is Tigers problem for 2017 monetary wise and should he make any indiscretions he cannot return to the Rhinos during 2017,nor can he receive any payments for 2017 from the Rhinos

I agree I think they've pretty much followed their plan when possible, whether people think it's right is another matter. Sutcliffe whether or not people think he's the right choice for starting HB, he always seemed destined to take over and the plan always seemed to be him and McGuire for a bit. They've always been quite high on Golding, again people might not think he's the future at FB but the club does. Hardaker said when he joined Cas that he was always planning to leave Leeds at the end of his current deal so maybe all its done speed up the process of Golding getting the 1 shirt.....likewise with Sutcliffe if they expected Sinfield to do one extra year. The props as a group (Cuthbertson, Garbutt, Singleton, Galloway) I think are fine by today's standards and all offer something. We all know you can't replace Peacock like for like but we probably have a prop unit where the workload is more evenly shared out than it was.

Obviously like mentioned above one or two departures might've come at earlier times but i think they've stuck with how they wanted to go and then added Ferres when that came out of the blue. The hooker role is one they've failed to nail down and even McDermott said the other week it's one they haven't managed to get sorted ever since Buderus left so it doesn't look like they're oblivious to the problem but just haven't been able to find the right long term guy.

Thats not my understanding of it but maybe I am wrong.