That's true it wasn't just about the homegrown players, I think what did make a difference was the quality of those players coming through all at the same time. I mean let's be honest a club would be happy to produce one of any of Sinfield, McGuire or Burrow but to have all 3 at pretty much the same time won't happen again any time soon, add in players like Chev, Matt Diskin Id even add players like Hall, Abblett in there later on, we were very fortunate to have watched that team for so long!

John Wilkin saying Leeds are the biggest flop of SL in 2023The biggest flop in Super League right now is Leeds Rhinos. They've just limped out of the playoffs. Your best player is playing for Castleford, and your best young player has left because you wouldn't pay him enough money. A bizarre club at the minute that makes very little sense.[/i

I agree with the general point he makes, but the specifics are nonsense, i.e. the suggestion that Austin was ever our best player (sure, he was up there for about four games), and even more so that Sam Walters is our best young player (he has the potential to be Adrian Morley but could still end up being Andy Hay - he certainly played that way against Wigan).

Good to see Wilkin is still 'healing' after those GF losses

Can someone just remind me, was this season the start of a new transition or a pre-cursor to the new transition and the real transition starts next season? I'm just wondering when is it that we're out of the transition and no longer able to use it as an excuse for jam tomorrow?

Personally id say Rohan Smith was brought in to oversee a 3 1/2 process or call it a transition if you like and in fairness wether you rate him or not he’s cleared out a lot of the squad in his first year, and whichever way you look at it that needed to happen.

Smith has done a good job in terms of removing a lot of dead wood from the squad so far, he's still got a lot to go, and we've just resigned some of it for another year or two. He's been let down badly by GH who replaced that dead wood with kids or second tier players with the odd exception during the last closed season. I would have said that we could have done most if not quite all the reshaping in 2 off seasons (this is the second) if we had replaced the departing players properly, but we haven't and don't appear to be now either.

Smith has failed to get anywhere close to the best out of the squad he has had at his disposal this season.

Both things can be true at the same time.

We don't know who else is coming in yet

What I would say about this season is that the disruption in the squad and also injuries has been really out of the ordinary, how many times this year have we had our first choice spine play together, I bet its nearly on one hand!

As much as I like smith and think he will sort it, he has made plenty of mistakes this year but as I said he's also had a lot to deal with squad wise.

Wilkin spouts a load of garbage most of the time.
But I'm afraid he's right with this.
Our season is panning out as the most disappointing in SL.
Obviously because of results.
But also how the squad has totally disintegrated.

Fixable for 2024 with a few more quality signings.
But 2023 is a total disaster.

The club have shown an inability to develop from the academy for many years and an inability to sign quality players and coaches from other clubs. So the two main elements of a successful team Leeds have shown no skill in achieving - why does anyone think this will improve. When was the last time Leeds produced a half back, FB or hooker of quality through the academy? Jack Walker?

One of my biggest disappointment's from the last decade was the wasted talent of Josh Sunley, what a player he could have been.

Maybe Wilkin posts on this site under various guises. That would certainly explain the complete loathing some show for the club. While I would say that we have strong competition for the biggest flops (Hudds, Hull and even Wire given the money they spent) the sheer size and resultant expectation of Leeds makes yet another year outside the top four seem like huge failure. There have been mitigating factors but next year there will be none.

The problem is that many fans are feeling the cumulative effects of years of promises and false dawns. Outside the top 4 wouldn't be awful in one year, but this is the longest run since the 1950s, and right now it feels like next year won't be much better. We'll have to wait until the end of the season for more player announcements, but I don't think there's a huge amount of faith that we'll get the right players in.

Regardless of who comes in as you say there can be no more excuses. If we start badly I really can't see Smith surviving even if we do have some big name additions. The amount of goodwill that's been chewed up this year is astonishing.

Don’t know if you’re on twitter but theres a section of fans who seem to absolutely despise everything about the club!

Agree about next year

Well, for a while it seemed as if Richard Agar was steering us out of transition, until the start of 2022, which seemed like yet another false dawn.

With Agar leaving, JJB and Long taking charge, and the club looking like relegation contenders, Smith's arrival effectively meant the start of a new transition. Remember the statements put out by GH at the time - they were looking to build something longer term over the duration of Smith's contract. He was not coming with the expectation of winning silverware within 1-2 years.

The amazing run to the GF at the end of 2022 showed the potential of Smith and the playing group at the time, but we also had a bit of luck going for us (although not much before that in the season, so these things can balance out!).

At this point a number of things went wrong. We didn't invest enough to improve the squad - largely because of players on big contracts from the Agar/Sinfield era. It may have been much better if say Sezer lived up to the club's expectations, and we didn't lose further players later on in the year. In hindsight we needed to keep Hardaker and sign MacDonald.

I don't know what happened in the pre-season, but it was clear that Smith didn't see much value in testing the squad in pre-season friendlies, and it seems we were undercooked in round 1. Obviously there's a danger in coming out of the traps too fast as Warrington did, but as bad as they have been they have managed to hold on to a higher league position.

During the season there should have been more foresight and better man-management regarding retention decisions over the current squad. This caused far too much disruption to the first team - I can't remember a season as bad as this since 1996 (which admittedly was far worse!).

Coaches all have their idiosyncracies. Smith's insistence on tactics like the passive defence, short kick-offs, and odd positional switches have not proven to work in the long-term (or ever). The passive defence may have its place in some circumstances during a game, especially in the summer heat, and perhaps if we are confident that the team is connected enough to defend the line when needed. But I agree it was naive of Smith to think this would carry on working at the start of the season in the winter when games are tighter and more about field position and possession. The signs are that he is learning but increasingly lacks the players to use tactics in which Leeds can better impose themselves on the opposition or the scoreboard...

On a positive note, Smith has been more willing than Agar and Brian Mac to pick younger players, and we know that the four interchange players will all probably get on the field at some point

It is I, Leclerc…