as i said a few weeks back I genuinely hope smith has learnt from last year but can a leopard change its spots?
the HKR game will be interesting in that regard as its the first pointer as to how we will play

Agree, short kick offs should be a pretty rare exception and short drop outs even rarer.
Would like to see more variety in kick offs. If you went much higher and longer , you could turn it into a contest and minimise the risk of a breakaway try and if goes wrong you hand ball over further down the pitch.
Try some in midfield and try some hard low kick offs between second row and centre and try and get a knock on or touch.

Overall we should be playing hard as we have a better spine and should not need short cut football to try and win.

The other aspect of practicing short kick offs is that when they are repeated over and over without regard to the context of the game (time, score etc) then the element of surprise has gone and you're doing it in a setting that's false.

I hope this all isn't indicative of the approach this year as it was sloppy last year and more of the same won't change that.

There must be an element of surprise in that the opposition must think surely Leeds cant be daft enough to try that [iagain[/i

We did one short kick off during the game (which we won) one short drop out and one with seconds on the clock, it wasn’t really a thing that we were doing as a standard.

We were actually quite structured and nothing like last season’s friendlies

Chris what did you make of Jack Smith then overall? I was thinking Simpson would be our next one off the line but Smith looks decent - lightweight though still.

Another controversial opinion but Luis Roberts seems to be improving too.

Id put Jack Smith as 3rd or 4th choice winger, he looks ready, was excellent in defence too

Thats better to hear, I was envisaging similar to boxing day which wasnt far removed from last year in how we started.

Given his pace I wonder if wing might be where he does make the breakthrough. Would you play him ahead of Olpherts yet?

Great to see a new crop of young players starting to apply pressure to first teamers. I just noticed from the clips again that some of O'Connor's distribution didn't seem on point again, but it could have been just the bit I saw. Hopefully this year the question of who is Leeds reserve hooker will be answered between O'Connor and Johnson.

Yes if play him above Olpherts I think

Given his pace and height, could well break through on the wing, long term, he's got real quality in putting his winger into space, so would envision him being a centre. One doubt i have had about him, since his Fev Lions days, is his overall agility, evasive skills, but he seems to be coming on in that regard. He'l be a big unit when he hits his early 20's thats for sure

Your knowledge of the young players is unbelievable mate.

Personally still like the look of Webster, Frater and Qareqare. Do you know much about Iceton or Smart?