He’s not so good he got three years…. As he got 2

Only 2 - how did he ever get through the door!!

Just another thread descending into Olpherts bashing

Assuming coaches have some say on recruitment (which given Merrin, Lolohea and Hurrell signed under Furner is undoubtedly the case, as I doubt if any of them would have signed without his influence), I'd say the coaching appointments have been the biggest single problem, starting with letting McDermott continue running the squad into the ground for at least a year too long. We then picked Furner, who had red flags all over the place following his stint as head coach of the Raiders, and then Agar, who did a god job in the first instance but then overstayed to prove why he too isn't a top flight coach.

I'd also add that any decent head coach would not have allowed junior development to become the sideshow it did under McDermott, who never seemed to understand its importance.

One other thing is that our two most recent wins - the 2017 Championship and 2020 CC really hurt in the long run because they both hid some awful failings and meant we kept McDermott and Agar too long. That doesn't mean I'm not glad we won them, but I think GH was blinded by the glint of silverware and couldn't see what was just beneath the surface at the club.

Whether Smith is the right man for the job long term isn't yet clear, but nobody should forget the utter mess we were in just before he arrived. I hope he is, because if not we'll have to start all over again under someone else.

I think the key differences with ours and Saints' transitional period are, Saints got their coaching appointments bang on in Holbrook and Wolf, they also have had James Roby, Makinson, Walmsley, and Johnny Lomax as constants, which has has made their transition much more straightforward. So you can criticise Leeds' recruitment, but it's been our inability to produce our own young spine players that has been a much bigger issue. If you look at the most successful teams over the last 20 years, all of them have had a spine made up primarily of homegrown players. Homegrown players tend to take up less cap space than players recruited from outside the club.
So until we can produce our own spine players of the required quality, and they stay fit, we will struggle, because recruiting from outside is too expensive and won't leave you with enough cap space for other areas of the team.

Just to point out, weve been a mess for 3/4 years but theres still only Saints ahead of us in terms of trophied and finals, us and Wigan come second to them.

That’s not me glossing over anything just pointing out that we do have a solid base to build on

I agree the base is there. the questions are will the new signings raise the standard and isrhe coach good enough. I guess as much as we chat only time will tell

Yep, and even though I think RS is the right man for the job (and others disagree) I think its too early to tell either way, and even though I'll be gutted to, I'll admit I was wrong with regards to Smith if by this pint next year we haven't made decent progress.

I hope he is. I really do. I just don't think he is. we'll see

I like Smith. As others have said we don’t really know if he’s the answer or not yet, but it would be nice if sometime soon, we’re at a place where there’s no longer any excuses that can be made. In short if we’ve had a proper crack at sorting our halves and some of the top end salary cap hangover from Agar out.

I like Smith but I'm still not 100% sure hes the right man to lead us forward, but I think he needs to be given a chance, as he has shown last season that he can motivate a team to success and hes shown glimpses this year that he can get the team playing great rugby.

He just needs to get the team playing consistently well, with another clear out at the end of this season and his mark stamped on the squad i think we will be in a better place to judge him.

Agree on all points.

I wouldn't say hunger, but I would deffo say cutting edge.

Work smarter not harder is the mantra but we really have taken some huge wrong turns and made things far, far harder than they needed to be.

I like Smith and hope he's given time to learn from the disappointments of this season (so far). The inconsistent form is an issue. The coach is only part of the equation though. A missing element since the McDermott era is youth development. There are signs this is improving (especially in the forwards) but Newman aside I'm nervous about the lack of obviously good quality outside backs and halves coming through.

Smith frequently alludes to the policing of the ruck and the flow of the game. I could be well off the mark with this, but it seems that we struggle most against teams using cynical tactics to slow down the ruck when we are in possession, but Smith doesn't want us to resort to the same tactics. It is noticeable how much referees are letting teams get away with laying on in the tackle this season. Clearing up the ruck would make a big difference, but at the same time I wonder whether Smith just needs to adapt better to the way the game is being refereed over here.

My issue with the ruck point, is that he’s just not learning to adapt. The definition of insanity etc. etc.