Got to remember how young Cam still is and i see more maturity in him now than in his academy days. In terms of feeding him games at this level i think the club has brought him on nicely but they had him playing as another battering him and while he can do the tough stuff Cam is a ball handler at heart.

Watching him last night i was seeing a lad who has it all and is arguably the best young forward in Super League right now. I walked out of the ground thinking hes now ready to be in the international squad. Hes top class.

As Gotcha says McD was using him all wrong but he did give Cam some game time at a young age and that has helped his development in terms of experience. Kids need to drip fed in to get them to the point Cam is at now.

Really pleased and excited in what weve got with this kid now. Going to be special i think. Thought he was absolutely outstanding last night and hes been excellent all year.

Thought young Mikolaj did well last night again too. Were heading in the right direction at last.

Very good all round performance last night from 1-17.
One player who cops some flak on here is Donaldson who might not make the yards but boy does he run it in hard and makes the tackles well above his weight and size.
Would be a shame to leave him out of the 17 for Greenwood but again it`s a squad game and great if we can rotate players.
Team spirit is good too but the test will come when we are losing and what better than a tough away game in France to keep it going.

Whereas we can expect to lose games this season, there isn’t anyone I’m fearful of playing because we are competitive now.

We have to keep the pack moving - we have good halves who can play a bit now, so if we provide a platform we’ll be thereabouts in most games.

I agree with most comments over Smith. What I would add is that he looks physically better this year. He has always had the skill, and he would beast lads his own age, but it’s taken him time to adapt now everyone he’s playing is stronger than him. RL is a very simple game in most respects, and it looks like Cam is now competitive physically again, which allows his skill to shine through. Could be a very good player indeed.

It’s not all about the club. I do wish people would stop McD bashing - most of the lads doing so well last night came through on Brian’s watch and will have had significant input from him. Who’s to say McD wouldn’t also have put Smith at 13 before now had he stayed? Maybe he was just trying to toughen him up to compete at open age, and add something more to his game? Maybe he does know what he’s doing a bit?

Anyway the key difference for me is the balance of the team this year. Everybody Agar / Sinfield has brought in is skilful (possible exception of Hurrell at times) and it’s now showing in the reduction in errors and our ability to apply consistent pressure.

mcd tried to turn everyone into a prop......

The biggest point for me is I'm looking forward to games again and not dreading them.
Yes we will lose games this year but I can't see many more Hull type capitulations on the horizon as last year.
A+ for effort and team spirit, will be a succesful season if we can keep that going.

Hang on a minute. Most of the lads came through on McDermotts watch? Most of the lads? What Handley, Oledzki, and Smith? that is most out of 17.

Smith would not have been playing 13 had McDermott still been here, because Smith wouldn't have still been here. You can hide from the problems of McDermott all you like, but it doesn't change the postion then.

I agree about looking forward to games, although that dread of capitulation will be there for a while I think, I also think we’ll cop a few good beatings along the way, however I do think we will do enough to be safe fairly early on which if im honest is all i wanted out of this year, low bar I know!

We have had a fairly easy start but how many of us thought we’d be top of the league at this stage, in fact some said we’d be 0 from 5! fair enough it will be short lived but its still 5 years since we have been there.

I think we are way ahead of what we thought. I am not so sure we have had an easy start though, Toronto aside. And of course things might have been totally different had the Huddersfield game gone ahead and a defeat had happened.

I think people still under estimate our Warrington performance, who are not a bad team, and are still fancied for honours. I don't think last night we came anything close to that Warrington performance, certainly not in terms of defence, which to be honest was quite awful last light. Considering had it not been for the ref mistake Toronto probably wouldn't have scored, that might sound harsh, but I personally thought defensively we were woeful all the way through. Attacking wise was top notch, but Toronto were simply garbage, which the week before we made Warrington play the way they did.

I agree about defence and I think Agar does too as he mentioned it in the presser, we seemed to be flapping at them a bit, other than Prior who I think is a fabulous signing.

Also agree on Warrington we absolutely bossed them and made them look worse than they are

Also credit to Agar or is it Sinfield, Webster or JJB for unpicking Toronto`s D that McDermott mentioned a couple of times.
Didn`t he say we were the best team yet to do this?
If that`s true then Agar`s tactics were spot on similar to the tactics used against Wire going big in the pack.

I thought the tone of the Sky interviews with McDermott (and Noble) painted Sinfield as being unnecessarily reactionary with his earlier statements about the 'rotten' culture at the club.

McDermott suggested in his interview with Carney that the team simply needed to experience the lows before being able to rise again, and they had been too accustomed to the senior players doing the team talks etc. IMO, McDermott is passing the buck here. It was his role as coach to identify leaders and provide inspiration, and if the crop of players were not good enough they needed to be told to shape up or be shown the door. Recruitment in the last few years of his tenure was not at the level of a top SL club (perhaps GH is equally culpable here). Furner realised this but tried to do everything too quickly IMO. Agar seems to have a more balanced rapport with the players, and so far seems to be the right man to oversee the rest of the transition.

I would also add it is refreshing to see the team with a proper controlling half-back and more structured attacking play - a big contrast to the quality of entertainment served up during McDermott's latter years. We may have won the GF in 2017 but the last few games of 2020 have been far more entertaining than the majority of league fixtures I saw that season. Glad we've ditched the off-the-cuff offload and hope game from the McDermott years... It seems to have taken a full season and many personnel changes to get this out of the team's system.

So by "lads" obviously I meant the youngsters. Including Walker and Newman yes, McD gave most of these their debuts and was involved in their early development, of course.

You say Smith wouldn't have still been here, you may be right but we'll never know for sure because McD went. It is just possible there were better options at 13 during Smith's early career (there may still be now if you consider Ward, and I like Prior at loose to start).

I'm not hiding from any problems, I think it was probably the right time for McD to go and I know he put a few people's noses out of joint along the way. It is more irrational to discount his contribution to the greatest period of success in the club's history just because you have a personal bias.

McD was at Leeds for a long time and worked his nadgers off for the cause, and personally he was the man in charge for the majority of my favourite Leeds-supporting moments, for which I'll always be thankful.

Players aren't always right and young lads coming through should expect to be patient, work their apprenticeship and earn the shirt they want. It's all on merit - Leeds aren't going to stop you playing if you're the best person for the shirt, but at a club like this you need to be close to international standard in every position (in theory).

Cam Smith has some responsibility in this too and he looks a far better prospect now than he did before - because he's worked hard. He is still very young. I'm enjoying watching him play this year.

It's certainly true that a malaise had set in over the last year of McD's leadership. I get the impression that recruitment wasn't totally McD's responsibility, but nobody wants to be left with the blame for that do they? Recruitment was gosh awful for years. it would be hard to see how McD *didn't* have any responsibility for all those signings that went on to have average Championship careers...

Every high performing team might have a shelf life, and that includes the coach. McD certainly isn't/wasn't perfect but I can't understand why he can't be given credit where its due as well as criticism where that's due. People seem to struggle with nuance these days...

One big change, and the advantage of finally having some controlling halves again, is the ability within this team for 1,6,7 and 9 to link play anywhere on the field. That is a nightmare for teams to defend against, and throw into the mix Smith and Cuthbo doing their thing leaves no easy defensive reads. Granted, Lui played mostly on the right side (and did it well) but the days of having one half on the left and one on the right are hopefully long gone. Simply chucking it to an isolated half, e.g. Sutty, and expecting them to create something from nothing, is hopefully a bad memory that won't return anytime soon.

Cam Smith staying a Rhino also which i think is fantastic news. Extention agreed.