RS is not to blame for the last five or six years level of performance or the lack of young players development within the club. He is responsible though for tactics and playing styles which is why he is under increasing focus.
He did a great job clearing out a lot of players that the majority felt where not good enough. The bulk of the current squad now are players that have been signed under his tenure or club trained however we seem to be utilising the same tactics as we were with last years squad! That highlights 3 questions?
Are the incoming players any better than the outgoing ones? Are they performing at the level that they did at their previous clubs!
Are club trained players developing and becoming a better version of themselves.
Do we need to approach coaching differently or employ different tactics?
On the current evidence you would have to say the answer to the above is that we must do better.
Yes we are a couple of players short of challenging at the top level but we should be strongly placed to be best of the rest with the squad we have on paper.
To achieve that the coaching and tactics need to change and thats in RS compass. He has done a lot of good things but he needs to take a look in the mirror and recognise that our tactics are not working and player development is regressing because of them.

Sezer managed to be disappointing for multiple coaches in SL, not sure what the point is here.

this is what I really don't get. smith, who started as an analyst, studies games and think his tactics are working. they clearly arent. bielsa was the same.

I'm genuinely not sure whether it's RS tactics or players lacking form and execution at the moment.

Looking at the season so far as a whole, there is still a chance we might be around that "best of the rest" position. We got spanked at home by Wire who are top of the table - I didn't love that myself, but at the moment it's an anomaly. We have stuttered and made errors in most games so far, and it hasn't been as good as we all wanted yet.

Huddersfield is a good test. At home again, they have a big CC game to navigate, whereas all we have to do is get fit and practice for them for 2 weeks. They will challenge us and play at us like Wire did, we're gonna have to come up with the answers this time.

Think the fact Newman is marquee, shows what a mess we have gotten into…..

I want Rohan to succeed at Leeds. He's done a huge job rebuilding the squad, junior development seems more on track and we seem a lot more professional as a club than under Agar.

But in the end the first team just has to do better.

Its starting to feel like last year, when we kept waiting for the team to turn the corner. We're hearing the same excuses - we weren't really that far off, just a few things went against us, we were in the contest, injuries, the mean other team keep slowing down the game, the referee isn't controlling the game the way we want, its raining, etc etc. We lost 34-8 at home to a team missing some of their best forwards. I must have missed the memo where it was decided that was an acceptable result, or that after the huge outlay on new players a 50% win ratio almost a third of the way into the season is OK.

I don't think its terminal yet, but if Smith doesn't have a serious rethink about some of the things we're doing then I don't think he will be here for the long-term, because I don't think dry weather or a fully fit squad alone will make much difference.

Slightly off topic but this week’s Saints -Warrington May give an indication of the true league form. Warrington far superior to us last week , be interesting to see how they shape up against Saints. Personally I think Saints, Wigan and Catalan are miles ahead of the rest of the pack. Sincerely hope it’s not another Saints-Wigan grand final. A final sobering thought ,our points for is the same as Leigh who have only won one match.

How many players did we produce who starred in the first team during the golden decade 2004 - 2015?
Senior, Peacock, Ellis, McDermott, Furner, Poaching, Lauitiiti, Webb. Bai,Luluia McDonald, Buderus, Moone. Plus many others who were None home produced.

Sinfield, McGuire, Watkins, Hall, Burrow all top quality and Yes there were some others like like Diskin Jones- Bishop, Bailey, Smith, Abblett (plus a few others) who were a level below also Gale and McShane who got away.
Great Rhinos players all but not so many big home academy produced players as you would imagine.
Obviously some names have been missed for whom I apologise and of course it is only my opinion which I am sure many will question.
My point being we probably have not produced as many big name internationals as might be imagined. I do believe we have a current crop from scholars to U18’s who just might come through and star in future first teams. So we are still amongst the best (certainly this side of the Pennines) at bringing on young talent.

But the way we play is not an anomaly!
Its been the same for the last 18 months its just the level of mistakes and player confidence that fluctuates!
We spend the majority of games defending in our own half ,flog our backs by expecting them to constantly bring the ball off their own line and rely on broken play to create scoring opportunities.When we make an error or concede a turnover because of the way we play it is usually in our half. The top teams do this in the opposition 20m.
This season we are 2nd for most team tackles made behind London and that tells you all you need to know.
I am not necessarily advocating getting rid of Rohan but if you keep doing the same thing you will across a season get a similar series of results.

That's my view as well. We're getting killed by mistakes because of where we're making them, as much as the number.

If we keep trying to play the same way we'll keep getting the same results. It works so sporadically that we can never build momentum across games. So confidence is always a bit brittle as well, and cannot get us across the line as it should.

I think we'll know more after the next few fixtures. If we lose again to Huddersfield, and they won't come to lie down, we're under pressure.

It's the manner of the defeats too - I could take the first league defeat against Saints because we were in it and competing throughout. The following week in the cup I thought was a bad performance, although not terrible. Way too sloppy against Wire, although we were in it for most of the game until it blew out.

Actually, no. We won’t know more, because we already know everything there is to know. We’ve seen it repeatedly already.

We’ll average out at 2/3 wins at best from every 6 games for the rest of the season.

From the next few games you’ll probably get a battling victory, a crap performance and easy defeat, and then maybe a meh performance and narrow defeat/win depending on how the cookie crumbles with decisions and injuries. We’ll be no wiser, if we pretend we don’t already know.

If you’re nearly 2 years in, and you’re still not sure about a coach, he’s definitely not the guy.

Hang on… do some of you on this thread not think Rohan is a decent coach or something?

A coach 100% has a huge bearing on the development of a player Jim, agreed, a player has to have the hunger and desire to be the best version of themselves, but that will more often than not be based around the physical development...size, strength, speed, fitness....

Where the coach earns their stripes is the technical and intelligence side of the game, teaching that player, even ones with all that desire, how to mould those physical gifts into an effective RL player, the nuisances of the game, knowing what good habbits look like and having the ability to install them, knowing what bad habbits look like and having the ability to eradicate them...

That said, The part i wrote about the next crop being wasted wasn't really directed at Rohan in particular, was just part of a frustrated rant TBH at the general state of the club on the field, for me, being hugely invested in the youth, what im seeing there is just as frustrating as the first team.....What i would say regarding Rohan, with knowing the version of rugby league he favours, do you have confidence he knows what good RL habbits look like to even try to install in the next batch? More importantly, when you watch these players in the reserves and Academy now, do you think they are getting that from Tony Smith? I hope to god im proved wrong, but my answer would be no to both

Was Fusitua believe its MoM now you don't much more bang for your Buck than those two legends.