Backs slow and unorganised. Forwards soft and dominated. This lack of any line speed needs to stop. Always allows your opposition a couple of plays near your own line.
If Newman isn't fit enough to play the 80 he should be in the reserves/on loan for a couple of weeks to regain full fitness. Not first team.
Desperately need a good 9. Leeming gone leaves O'connor and Johnson. O'connor may pass OK but always seems to take an extra second picking it up then passing rather than one movement. On the plus side though at least it gives Johnson his chance. Hopefully he takes it.

Smith also has to take a lot of the blame. He coaches them yet they turn up with no ideas or energy. His game plans suck at the mo. Maybe when we get to actual good weather it'll improve

Agree. I think there’s a fair bit of “here we go again” with fans who are fed up with poor starts to the season and poor regular rounds. Smith needs time to sort this squad out, there’s some way to go yet. He’ll get them playing better I have no doubt. We’ve only played well for a game and a half so far out of 5 which is not good enough for Leeds, that has to improve quickly

The part I’m struggling to understand though is - how exactly is he trying to get us to play?
It’s all well and good saying he’ll get us playing better but we’re 5 games in and we’ve not style other than one out or throw it round like idiots and hope it sticks

Smith will be out of a job in 4 or 5 weeks, so Leeming should hang around and see what the new coach thinks.

Don’t talk wet. Goodness me. Smith got us to a grand final last year after being in charge only a few month and we’ve beaten saints away this year.. This team are not the first Leeds team to go to s struggling Cas and get beat, it’s happened many many many times over the years as several on here know too well.

To say he will be or want him to be sacked soon is simply ludicrous.

I haven't watched it on TV and probably won't, but my impression was that the first half game plan (tire them out down the middle) was working. Cas looked shattered at half time. However very few game plans can survive 25 mins of pressure invited by basic handling errors and poor discipline, which is what we brought upon ourselves in the second half. Even then we could have won the game with a bit of composure.

We desperately need a quality 9.
There's a lot to like about O'Connor, but he's not the answer.
Too slow at the PTB and the quality of the ball is still not good enough (better than Dwyer and Leeming tho).
The amount of times we had decent position and the first receiver is standing still, or even worse, reaching above his head or behind his back to catch the ball is ridiculous.
When the opposition has good line speed, like Cas did last night, the attack has immediately been snuffed out and it leads to desperation plays.
Quality ball to first receiver is needed.
It doesn't look like Rohan fancies Johnson, so now Leeming has gone, this must be the recruitment priority.

Our left flank was vulnerable all night long. The second cas try was woeful defending,crisp passing along the line and an overlap was created. Our defensive line all at sea. Might have been better for Newman to play the second half. We aren’t creating much running out of dummy half, possibly due to the fact cas defenders seem to be creating a rugby union style maul at every play the ball. Cas deserved the victory and best of luck to them.

Don’t think Bentley worked as an interchange prop, feel like we really missed Holdroyd and Tetavano in the second half.

Austin seemed to want to run it in himself all night, did not work

Voice of reason again here folks if I may: Smith is still working with the same squad that was getting mullered most of the time. The new players he has been able to bring in have mostly been bargain bin just to give the squad some balance. Until the like ls of Tet leave he doesn’t have much chance to bring in really quality.

Some of the new signings he has made have been decent in the circumstances; but the squad still isn’t good enough to be consistent every week. Not at this stage of the season anyway.

We have an absolutely cracking set of young lads coming thorough but we have not got the senior signings right for years.

Is Johnson just not rated by Rohan? Been talking of Bentley at 9 of late…… Johnson is 22 now a supposedly has great passing and decision making. Roby Clarke, even Walker at Widnes were making a mark in late teens. When is he going to get a chance for some big minutes?

Few observations from me to add to the above.

Slow play the ball didn't help us - I actually thought the ref was pretty pure at policing this, Cas were laying on for far too long, however:

Our passing was appalling. First receivers always standing still with balls going above and behind them is no way to start an attacking play.

All our attack was focused around the ruck, which didn't work due to slow PTB. No early ball given to Macdonald or others to exploit week defenders like Fonua.

Our wingers are infuriating. Can be great going forward in first/second tackles, but constantly coming up with absolute howlers! Handley missed big time.

The honeymoon period is over with Smith. I like him, and think it will work out, but results are the lifeblood of professional sport.

Cas were dire and are a poor team, so to lose the way we did is pretty inexcusable for me.

If a coach doesn't like you it doesn't matter how hard you train you wont get picked - best to cut your losses and move on. The best outcome for all parties.

There are so many flaws in this line of thinking. Smith took us to the grand final last year, why are we now seemingly worse off now that he's had more chance to influence the squad with pre-season and signings? I'm guessing that on the current direction of travel we are set for a worse PPG in comparison to the games he was in charge of last season. Could it be that he rode the crest of a wave last season, and now that it's been time to really step it up, he's not up to it? Does beating Saints really mean anything when we've lost 3 of the 4 other games? It was also a bit last-gasp and somewhat lucky, we have to admit that.

The comparison with teams of the past is totally irrelevant. Those teams had won grand finals. This team haven't. In 2006 Hull sacked Kear shortly into the season and then the new coach (something Smith?) took them to the grand final (from 2nd position). He then proceeded to do nothing in the following season/seasons and was sacked.

Hanging our hat on the Grand Final appearance is going to be the same as keeping Agar for as long as we did on the basis of ''but he won us the challenge cup''. It's just flawed thinking.