Don`t think we will be seeing Miller leave.
Where will he go!?
Fitzgibbon is also the sort of second rower we needed but once again lost out to Wire.

We could very well win the next 2. But I think it’s 6th at best for us, maybe with huge improvements we might get 5th. I said at start of season anything less than top 4 imo is a failure by Smith. I’m just not convinced by his coaching whatsoever. It’s the same stuff being dished up week after week since start of last season. You can clearly see his coaching impact now.

We were totally flat right from the start, getting knocked off tackles left right n centre. We just look very very average and soft as hell. I think the roster is better than what we’re seeing but Smith isn’t getting a tune from the squad he’s put together.. next 4 or 5 games are huge.

If he doesn't leave he needs to grow a pair. His last game for the Knights worried me but I put it down as a one off.

Really don't know where we go without a big mid season signing.

Have to be honest, the new players are under performing. Salford must be laughing al the way to the bank. Croft and Ackers are pretty underwhelming. Mom is average. Frawley just needs to buy a ticket back to Oz. He is utter e. We are 4 players short of a decentish squad. A proper half back, centre, hard prop and ball playing 13. C Smith has looked average at best this season.
Our tackling is shoddy as ever. Wire put us to ground on virtually every play. Mostly on our backs. We just tickle them in defence.

Such a disappointment when there was real promise with the signings.

Croft and Ackers are quality players. The fact they look poor for us lies with the Coach. He should have have gone last season.

We have no props that would get into any of the top 5. You can have all the backs you want just like in the early 90's, but without the forwards to make yardage and dominate the opposition the backs are a waste of money.

This will be another long season with or without smith until we recruit 2 good hard props.

Thought McDonnell was very good again and O’Connor, but I’d struggle to pick anyone else out for much praise tonight.

Errors again (do my head in).

Almost comical when we got into good ball for a rare time in the first half: we had a set play for once off the scrum and completely muffed it.

Tough result to take at home that one. Pressure is certainly mounting on Smith. Luckily we have 2 weeks to regroup and try to put things together for some vital winnable fixtures.

Next 4 or 5 are huge games Jim. Smith has to deliver and quickly. It’s not good enough

Absolute sh**e ! Out played and out coached , if anybody thinks RS will get this team into the top 6 is deluded. His reputation for improving players has worked in the opposite direction at Leeds - he is making players worse eg. Oledski , Holdroyd , Newman etc .
He has to go now !!

I can't really defend that. This stupid defensive system (or approach) is going to continue to kill us against decent (or half decent teams). We simply cannot compete when we're playing sets from our line and the opposition starts close to halfway. Every time we play more direct and compete for position we look miles better, but that seems to be once every five or six games, and even then maybe for 40 minutes.

Its just a really poor strategy, and it can't help but make everyone else, particularly our playmakers, look like complete duds. Its all very well talking about needing more structure in attack but far too many sets are starting so deep that only hail mary plays can help. I don't see how we can even try to build a quality attacking shape when we have so few attacking sets.

Frawley really doesn't look at all good at the moment, but I'll admit that unless we start to win territory battles its not fair to judge him or the other spine players.

I could judge Frawley on his stint at Midgets and his following failure in Oz ,Miller is a seven a side player and Mom is on Holiday , we have little size in the pack apart from flat a track Bully and a slow motion heavyweight .

Meanwhile Wigan have two superstar Aussies who they have signed up long term and a pack of young , tough , big enthusiastic forwards and loads off them . Oh and there coach improves players .

Why is it that every week Leeds give away a try from dummy half in their own 10 metre area? What do they do in training?

ploiner - I promised to stop bagging Frawley in the off season, as I thought he was likely to be a bit of a dud. Nothing I've seen changes that, but Croft isn't setting the world on fire either. The reason for me isn't so much talk of structure etc but the fact we're consistently getting murdered up the middle. I've never seen half backs able to do much if the pack is getting monstered like ours is.

I think Smith sees it as rope-a-dope - let the other side think they're making yards etc but not score tries, and we hit back and score from a distance. Or that seems to be the approach. It worked at the back end of 2022 because it was different and we simply didn't have the forwards to do anything else. But it got worked out last year, and if he doesn't look to change it up I really don't think he'll be here next year.

I know we don't have the biggest forward rotation but they can and should play with linespeed and aggression. We'd look so much better if they did.

Conceding soft tries just before half time is a killer too.

If you watch the game back you’ll see our line speed in D wasn’t terrible all game. You’ll see that most Wire tries came directly from our errors.

We are gifting teams possession and position through errors. It could be argued that some of those errors are down to individuals trying to take on the entire opposition… but I just think we’re out of form right now.

Yes the coach is ultimately responsible for this and RS has work to do. We look like half the side needs a pre-season again already.

Expect Handley to be out for a while with ribs.

The errors are coming as a result of culture, we accept errors with a pat on the back and an “oh well never mind”. That culture facilitates those errors, and the top teams just don’t accept them. Can you imagine McDermott, McGuire, Burrow, Sinfield, Peacock accepting the team making the errors that we are making? The culture starts with the coach and is taken onto the field by the leadership group which we are also badly lacking.