No progress in the cup would be unacceptable if we just lost to Batley or Fev, we lost to the team up at the top end of the table. Get a grip

I for one don't think Smith should go but I do think he needs better coaching support - two rookie assistants isn't great and how much influence can they possibly have.

I would like the team to win every week but I don't consider it a right. What I do expect is a team to play somewhere close to its potential most weeks and be able to do the basics. These are full time athletes after all. You can blame the players for that but some of this has to be down to the coaching. Olpharts dropped a ball he should have caught but look at the pass it was nowhere near where it should have been.

The Aussies beat us all the time because they do the basics so much better than we do - perhaps the players are more gifted and can read the game much better which makes executing the skills easier. Greater competition for places I suppose concentrates your mind and your work ethic

The abuse for Olpherts is laughable, he dropped a ball coming out of his own end but for most the game he was effective a making metres out of our own half. He's definitely this years scape goat.

don't blame him for Saturday, the pass he dropped was a shocker, but to suggest he has been anything but very poor this season is wrong

He hasn't started his Leeds career off well I agree, and he's not one of the players i would have singled out for criticism for Saturday.

I agree with you there - he is not SL standard.

He was far from one of the poorest performers on Saturday - some forum favourites need to up their game too and that includes the coaches

Lovely post. My Dad has stopped coming this season due to ill health but I still get to watch games on TV with him and I'm thankful for every opportunity. I feel your loss.

Can I also just say I had a laugh out loud moment when you said he first took you to Headingley when he was six! My word, your old man was an early starter!

Good luck for the rest of the season (just not against Wigan, obviously)

My beef is he is not a patch on the winger we let go.

Thank you that’s a lovely post.

My Dad died in 2001 (at 4icon_cool.gif we went to most Leeds games together and quite a few Dewsbury or Batley games, always feel gutted that he never got to see us win all those trophies, he was a lot like me we just loved going to the games together, 99 CCF final was really special.

Anyway im not saying I’m flouncing im just going to try not get into tit for tat arguments and just ignore the overly negative stuff.

Ironically I thought we were the best we have been in 2005 when we didn’t win anything (bar WCC) we were absolutely awesome that year.

For all Olpherts blunders he usually makes metres going forward and has a try in him too. Tindall just does not look up to scratch for a good SL club

Briscoe?

I'm actually not too disheartened by that loss, as if Newman makes that pass, we win the game and it's a completely different feeling. We showed great intensity in the first half, but dropped when Holroyd was off the pitch.

Losing to a top four team within four points it's acceptable providing we can build from there.

From the second half the week before, you can see where Smith wants them to play. Still need to be more direct in my view, but the better weather seems to be helping us. If we had more pace at FB or halfback, we'd begin to look even better.

2004 we were very good.

2005 we were practically untouchable and blew teams away left right and centre and yet we won nowt.

Yes. Every time the ball was kicked to one of our wingers I was nervous I never got that feeling with Briscoe.