People keep making lame excuses.

We get thrashed at Warrington at the best of times

Even our great teams got beat at Hull KR

Even our great teams lost at Cas, it’s a derby.

Hull was close, it could have gone either way.

It was wet and windy, we had injuries.

It’s a process….blah blah blah. All this is in first 2 months of the season.

Why is Smith on a downward trajectory compared to last season despite apparently getting rid of some dead wood and bringing his own players in?

Remember in 2019- it’s a 5 year transition
2020- it’s a 5 year transition, starting from now
2021 - actually it starts now
2022 - no now.

Let me guess, Smith needs to clear out loads of dead wood and it’ll probably take a few years to get cooking? Yeah I thought.

Let’s just call it a 30-year transition and wait for another golden generation, if the game isn’t dead by then.

Smith had his hands tied regarding new signings for this year, and has tried to add some depth in key positions. I’m relatively happy with Sangare and McDonnell and MacDonald.

Yes there is more dead wood and I’ve posted before I’d not f about and I’d ring the changes. This could be done for next season as various contracts come to an end.

We now have O’Connor, Holroyd, Gannon, Walters starting to cement themselves as first grade players and Johnson, Simpson, Sinfield not too far behind so yes the prospects of a new home-grown generation look good.

There are a number of other good players coming through the academy. We had bad luck with Walker, and a few other young prospects haven’t developed as we wanted but I honestly feel we are only a FB and SO away from being a very decent side now.

Totally agree the club have spaffed 3-4 years on really poor signings and just got the rebuild completely wrong. However there are genuine reasons to be positive now - IF we can get rid of excess salary cap and invest it in the correct areas.

And why do you seem to dismiss the "excuses" and lay all the blame with Smith? Your anti Smith agenda is laughable

It's not just laughable it's sad that there is obviously so much pleasure taken in these rants. It's all about being seen to be right, rather than actually supporting the club or even the sport. To say anything remotely positive would not support this doomsday logic, so if we win it all goes quiet.

Pathetic

It wasn’t dominated, but we did concede ground too easily.

The spine is the main issue in terms of players, and Smith couldn't replace them last off-season. I'm fine with O'Connor/Johnson moving forward, but 1,6 and 7 are such key positions and even on paper its hard to argue Myler, Austin and Sezer are top 4 as a group. Huge decisions coming up for next year, but we won't/can't replace all three.

We do give up way too much ground each defensive set for my liking. Even in that supposed great second half v Cats we gave up huge yards right up the middle pretty much every set. A few times we made the first couple of tackles OK but then a regulation play would see them make 15 yards and get a quick PTB, leading to more easy yards. Although Smith doesn't seem too worried by this defensive softness I don't like it. RL's all about possession and position. Drop the ball a lot and you'll generally lose. Play in your own half a lot and ditto.

We do look like we have a lot of strike, and a willingness to move the ball around. When the weather clears up a bit we'll probably look a much better team more often. But we need a more solid Plan B for nights like Friday.

It's this kind of posting that causes bad blood from rival fans and quite childish.

Thought you looked really poor in the friendly at our place earlier this year. Don’t read much into them so took it with a pinch of salt, however don’t think you’ve looked great these opening 7 rounds either (second half catalan apart). As you showed last year, there’s still plenty of time to turn it around though. Must say as an outsider I really don’t like Rohan Smith. His chopping and changing on and off the field comes across arrogant as anything, and a lot of the time seems like he’s trying to be different for the sake of it. I’m sure with Mik coming back and Newman on the pitch you’ll pick up again though, however I do think you look a mid table side at best this year.

Think a bit of respect has to be paid to Rovers. Abdull has now played 4 games and 10 mins of Catalan before he went off injured, he’ll be on 12 MOS points after this week. Previous posts comparing our spines, I’d probably take Oledski, Newman, Smith and Martin from the Leeds team and that’s it. Maybe macdonald at a push. I think the weather played a big factor in the score line not being as big as it should have been. You could hardly make yards all night. Willie Peters is building something special at Rovers at the minute, but it continues to be going under the radar. I don’t mind it that way in fairness.

Won’t be under the radar much longer with your postings!

Good post mate. Agree with you.
I get that comparing players is completely subjective and pretty pointless.
But the point I was trying to make is about the difference in current performance level.
If we forget about the result/performance on Friday, forget current form and forget the last 7 games.
At the beginning of the season if we'd asked how many of that starting HKR 17 would I take in the Leeds starting 17.
For me it would have been 2 - Abdul and Coote.
You could probably make an argument for 3 or 4.
So my point is, and the problem is - Leeds are underperforming.
HKR are performing very well - and good luck to you!

You could make an argument for 17 based on Friday. But next week might be 2-3 if we pay well vs Hudds. That’s sport…..

Matt Shaw has it right about our inconsistency - the gap between the best and worst of some of our players is way too big. I think part of that comes down to lack of leaders in key positions, so when we aren't playing well everyone is waiting for someone else to make something happen. The worst offender for this has to be Sezer, who seems to be the invisible man whenever we need someone to drag the team with them.

Sezer is quiet and I always like gobby halves. But he get stick for games like Friday and Cas away but can he do much when we don’t have 1 PTB in their 20 in a whole half? And not many in the second , where he kicks for 2 tries. He spent most of the gaming defending and stopped Linnett, who is a real threat really well.

Croft, Williams and lomax don’t do much game changing stuff in their own 20.

I agree about we need a real leader

Correct Shabs, that's why I said ignore the last 7 games.
And as always with sport, if we play well and beat Hudds next week, all is forgotten.
Until we get beat by Hull again the following week....

I’ll retire as ac fan if we loose again vs this Hull team!

we did a few weeks back....

Yeah but have you seen what’s happened since then!

they have been totally crap.
we have been mainly crap

We have got rid of some so called dead wood and replaced it with guess what ?
Some more dead wood

What a load of balderdash !

Johnson , Sinfield and Simpson have played a handfull of games between them and Gannon ( mainly due to injuries) Holroyd only had a handful of good games and Walters can't get in the team so they are hardly cemented in the first team, then you pick out full back as a place we need a player , yet Myler is our best player .
Some of this years signings are just cheap and somewhat bizzare .

Not quite sure what your point is?

Which signing other than Olpherts (which is certainly looking questionable) is cheap/bizarre? Bear in mind we had apparently very little room under the cap with a squad which was deficient in so many areas, so its not as though we could just throw out half the team and bring in superstars.

Roberts, Hooley, Ruan and Warren were signed to add depth and with a focus on the future. Sangare and Lisone were signed to add bulk to the pack, which they do. Macdonald was brought in to add strike and pace, which he undoubtedly does. McDonnell is one for the future as well but already looks a solid player.

The reality is we got rid of a couple of players who'd been clogging up the place for years (Sutcliffe and Dwyer are doing amazingly for Hull I see) and strengthened where we could. But we didn't/couldn't get rid of our top earners because a huge chunk of our cap was tied up in players under contract.

Off contract this year are Fusitu'a (who may be OK but definitely not worth big bucks), Tetevano (marquee in name only), Sezer and Austin. This will not only clear a huge amount of cap space but also clear key positions for incoming players. As they're all overseas players we should be able to go hard to recruit the best we can from the NRL. Bentley will also be on a wedge and supposedly wants to try the NRL, so there's another potential chunk of cap there.

I'm with KaeruJim - we're starting to look like we've got some solid players and some really good younger players about the place, but we need to improve our spine hugely. I'd also say full back and one of the halfbacks.

Agreed. You'd have to say that all of Agar's big ticket additions: Tet, Fus, Sezer, Bentley and Austin, have for differing reasons, not been consistent value for money. Could well see most, if not all of them depart. I really hope the club have already made decisions about who they want to get rid of and are actively lining up replacements now. We badly need a couple of players (see French & Field) who can win a game out of nothing.

I will give you McDonnell and Macdonald the rest are very ordinary to say the least and if you just want bulk then why not just sign a couple of Sumo wrestlers .
Why you can not see that Myler has been our best and most creative player the last 3 years is beyond me .
Yes though i agree to shipping out Seizer , Austin , Faz and Bentley along with Tetevano

Myler was our best player over those years. He wasn’t our best, I would say that would comfortably be Mik followed by handley. He was one of our best because of how Agar wanted to play, the structured, move it wide with a fullback coming into the line and going through the line or throwing the final pass. Myler is a good player at doing that, as he was a halfback.

That isn’t how Smith wants to play, I would say it is clear as day that isn’t his style. As such the effectiveness of myler will diminish (he is also getting older and his biggest weakness is he lacks pace).

In terms of the signings, given what was available and when Smith came in I would say Sangare was a good signing. Big body, looked decent in the World Cup and SL last year, good impact player and isn’t old. Lisone I am less sure about but in terms of style and attributes he is the kind of player we should have been looking at.

I’m not sure who you were expecting us to sign? Can you for example name a player we didn’t sign who moved in the off season, was in a position we needed and was available when smith came in?

The test is the end of year. You have 4 quota spots opening, big money players, one a marquee and two half backs all OOC. Additionally you have Bentley who won’t be cheap.

There is some absolutely rubbish that gets posted on here. Some people need to be more like Rohan! When you win it isn’t as great as you think, when you don’t win it isn’t as bad as you think. You inherit what you inherit and you cannot just magically get rid of contracted players, especially when you come in mid season.