You have a good point about high standards and ambition. For too long the club has gone with the “trier with potential” model and expected the player to magically transform in our wonderful environment into a swan.

Sometimes that works but more often than not it doesn’t. Other top clubs also have good staff and facilities. The NRL clubs we sign players from have better.

In any case, it is clear that we lack top quality players. I think we aren’t far off being competitive again now; but to win silverware we need the academy prospects to mature over a number of years.

Bit of an arrogant statement that about the benchmark. That is why supporters of other clubs dislike the Rhinos, thinking they are far superior to most clubs.

Okay, but who would you want to set as a benchmark?

saints were top draw, very impressive and enjoyable to watch.
but.
it was like American football the number of times Lomax ran around the back of blockers in the Leeds line. not penalised once

Ava was a big loss Thursday night, but the biggest loss was when lunt was taken off. The score was 10-6 to Leeds we then went completely to pieces, Dwyer for all his enthusiasm is a complete disaster to the defensive structure and must be a nightmare to play with when defending. Leeds need a great all round hooker and should move heaven and earth to bring in Cameron Smith for next season and kill too birds by getting Bellamy too.

If they are speaking to prospective coaches it's being kept very quiet . No leaks at all. I hope at present Agar is not the only option

People are acting as if saints are a great side. They are very good no doubt but no better than our side of a few years back or the bulls, Saints, Warrington, Wigan sides that have had long spells going well at the top of SL in the last 20 odd years. Sadly the level below saints is a long way back and they are miles ahead. Those sides had a few others around them creating a contest; this year has been an absolute procession.

That said they still have to get over the line and it wouldn't surprise me if they again ended up with just the hub cap.

I've a little hunch Wigan could win the title

Me too sadly.

If anyone at the club thinks its arrogant to benchmark us against sets then they need to leave now. Every side with any ambition should do the same.

I personally hope sets win the treble and get a good coach who keeps them at the same level. That might give enough impetus for the rest of SL to work to get there rather than hope for them to fall back.

As for cycles etc I understand that fully. I just get angry that we're so hopeless 4 years after sinfield and peacock left, and have been for almost the whole time, with the best hope for next year being at the lower end of the top 5.

Top 5 is still out of the question with such an inconsistent bunch of players.

I disagree. With the station we've had, top 5 has only just been ruled out. If we'd got our act together a month earlier we'd be talking about the play offs. In many ways in glad we're not, because I think it would have papered over cracks

Top five is hardly any achievement anyway, with the state of the teams this year. Even top two is hardly that. Such a huge gap, from top to rest.

Absolutely. Poor league, us being toward the bottom is pretty dire

The standard is appalling. This Saints team are no world beaters.