If there is a God then this will happen soon before Hetherington kills the club completely. A good business with no ambition to win when in a sporting environment is a disaster waiting to happen.
If you care at all for the club you will go Hetherington before you become a figure of hatred

Let's not get carried away here - GH is running a small SME, c£12m T/O - he isn't a titan of industry. Surely this business lives and dies by the performances on the field and as such should this not be the primary focus of the club after ensuring the security of the personnel they employ?

As a manager sometimes you have to admit you have reached the limits of your effectiveness and for things to progress you need to hand over to someone who can take it to the next level - perhaps that time has arrived at Leeds Rhinos?

I think that time has come. This season marks 7/8 years and six in a row where we have finished outside the top 4 in a 12 team competition where some clubs are quite weak and this year 2 are awful. Salford, Leigh and HKR will all finish above us. Between all 3 I reckon they have brought through Mikey Lewis via academy route. We are underperforming regularly given some of our inherent advantages, such as actually having an academy.

To be fair to GH he passed the mantle to Sinfield but got it back.
It’s time for change on the football side.
As Matt said the Sinfield change was no great success, albeit a short spell. So it needs careful consideration.
I doubt there is anyone in-house to take over. Maybe we should look at Ian Blease or Danny McGuire with his contacts.
I don’t know who else is out there. Ultimately it’s getting someone in to make good judgment calls.
We seem to have lost our mojo.

It is time for GH to focus on the business side and let someone else run the Rugby side. Question is who? McGuire will be the next coach of Leeds not a DoR. I’d be happy to see an Aussie brought in to do it, someone with no ties to the previous regimes, but has relevant experience and contacts.

The problem with the DoR role is frankly one of how much work is involved? Its not really a full time job is it, if the coach picks the players, is supported by assistants and also watches over the reserves and academy, who have their own coaches? So a DoR does what - recruitment and selecting the coach? Recruitment is vital, but is it a full time job? I don't think so, and in any event the coach has to be involved in all recruitment decisions.

What you really want is a club CEO who can run a business and understands rugby. We have that, but it would be good to see GH make some moves that suggest he's learned from the myriad mistakes of recent years and that there's more than some nebulous 5-year plan to look forward to. If/when he retires its that CEO role that matters.

Frankly some of us predicted problems years ago, and just as the Golden Generation was a lesson in what can be achieved through good decisions (as well as luck), the years since then are a case study in exactly how not to manage a transition.

Personally I'd want a DoR who could also sort out the player pipeline through the ranks. On the surface it looks pretty slick but it all feels a little too comfortable somehow. I'm reminded of the England RU team at times when I look at what we ought to be producing and what we actually are.

Fair point it is not really a full time job as such. He must be knocking on the door of 70, maybe GH should retire altogether. My view is he’s out of touch now on the RL side and should step down.

No chance of McGuire at Leeds unless GH is gone - much bad blood when he left.

Are you crazy - a DOR role at an elite club is a FT role and some. The need to run the whole rugby operation including conditioning - that includes all academy development, scouting, coaching appointments, player recruitment etc. IT/data reporting, analysis - equipment - we are at least 5 years behind the NRL.

The last thing you want is the coach choosing the players - he goes and you have all his players for another two years as we have experienced for years.

That’s what I think will happen. GH will retir before the next coach is appointed, and whoever is DoR (JJB could well be, he’s now on the board), will bring Danny back.

It will be JJB.

ZooZoo - we are miles behind the NRL in a lot of ways, including the size of the club. They might need a DoR because they have a huge number of backroom staff which even a big SL side like Leeds can't afford. Even then it varies club to club. Gould is effectively DoR for the Bulldogs, but he was brought in to root and branch rebuild the entire setup, including all staff and players and put in place systems for player development that had withered. But in a well run team there wouldn't be 10% of the work involved, and once Gould is done and the club is on a firm footing the place should largely run itself.

We can agree to differ on that one, but you are spectacularly wrong about the coach not selecting players who sign. It has to be the opposite. The coach should be front and centre in any and all decisions on recruitment. After all they are the ones who live and die by results, and have to be able to work with players. No coach worth their salt would or should work for a club where they don't have as much control as possible over signings.

I completely disagree with your last paragraph - in RL we see all too often new coaches picking up the signings of the previous coach and it taking 2/3 years because of contractual issues to try and turn things around. Smith is in this boat now - Leeds have been in transition for 6 years when does this ever stop.

If you look at Saints they have a style of play that each coach has to maintain and they have players that fit that system. The coach may have an input but the players have to fit the system - perhaps this is a better way than a coach who wants all his own players it fails and the next comes along and say the same it's a crazy roundabout that nobody can get off.

Smith fails and a new coach is stuck with the likes of Olpherts, Fasitua, Lisone, Hooley etc. What happens then?

If JJB is the DOR he will do what Sheens did at Wests.