Correct.
You've only got to look at history.
The dominant Wigan, Leeds and now St.Helens sides were all built on a foundation of youth development and having quality home grown products in the key positions.
You've only got to look at Warrington and Hull to know that you just can't buy success.
We are now paying the price for a lack of focus and/or investment in the youth development program.
Some might say that there has been a lack of good young talent around in the area, but there are plenty of good early to mid 20's age players from West Yorkshire doing well at other clubs.
This shows that either we are not quick enough or smart enough to pick this talent up at an early age, or they just don't want to come to Leeds.
Either way, this needs addressing to forge a path back to success.
Otherwise we are competing in mid table with the others desperately looking for NRL cast-offs that we blindly hope are going to be the saviour.
And we're clearly not prepared, or able, to pay transfer fees for the top British talent anymore.
Again, this puts us way behind the big ambitious teams.
Hopefully, some of the young prospects will come through, but I fear another 3-5 years of much the same...

Tell that to Welsby after Lisone took half his ribs out towards the back end of the game.

Might help if some of our signings lived up to expectations. Leigh seemed to have done reasonably well with sensible signings. Also Catalan seem to be astute in the transfer market. If as you suggest that we will bob along mid table for 3 to 5 years that would be a disaster for season ticket sales.
Can’t see caddick allowing that situation to unfold. Some major decisions have to be taken at the season end, first of all the coach, in spite of a poor season I am not certain firing smith will change things. Looking at Leigh it would appear at face value that Lam is a good coach obviously not appreciated in his former position. Maybe a lesson to be learned from that scenario. My main concern is the age of some of our key players I include Myler in that ,whilst he his safe under the high ball he brings very little to our attack. Welsby last week showed what a top full back can produce. We need some support for Conner at hooker, although I am suspicious he may turn out to be another journeyman player. Whilst we don’t know what the situation is ref salary cap nor do we know the situation regarding Walters . Did we do enough to keep him?. Get these major decisions wrong at the season end and we will be mid table for 5 years or more.

You can't buy success (we tried in 90's) but you can buy well enough to give your homegrown talent a chance to succeed. That's what we have to do from both the NRL and SL. I don’t claim to be an expert in judging talent in junior rugby players but of the current academy set up there's only McCormack who looks to have an X factor to me. Sinfield has bags of talent too, but it would be ludicrous to pin too much expectation on him. We have a few other good ones but in my opinion absolutely no guarantees. There is no new golden generation around the corner, so GH and co have to be all over it on all fronts.

Its true that ultimately long term success depends on bringing through quality juniors. But its never been the full story. In 97 when Caddick took over we made some huge signings. Sinfield, Burrow, McGuire and co didn't come into a team full of numpties. We were a team just off being able to win things when they came of age.

What will likely never be repeated is having a batch of hugely talented kids all in the same age group coming through at the same time. If you look around the comp you're lucky to develop 2 quality first grade players out of any particular Academy group. It will take years for even a massive focus on juniors to bear fruit.

That means that signings will continue to be really important, and our record in that regards for years has been generally pretty inept. Big money on players in positions that don't win games, unfit players and players who just didn't want to join the club has happened way too often.

Excellent posting

Absolutely.
It's not only about youth development.
But that's probably the most important of the key ingredients.
Strong youth development program and quality home grown talent in key positions.
Top level British signings e.g. Senior, Peacock, Ellis who can act as leaders.
Complemented with quality O/S players in positions we are short e.g. Buderus, Webb, Lautiti.
Oh, and a good coach helps.....

What you refer to was a tackle made by a prop on a fb around 20+kg lighter than Lisone.
I`m talking about our forwards and props in particular running the ball in.
Not one of ours got anywhere near Lees and their impact in comparison was pitiful.
But yes Lisone did tackle the much lighter fb pretty well.
Shame our props didn`t do the same to the St Helens props on the day.

Yes, IMO the forwards totally failed to dominate, leading to a stalemate that was only broken by an exceptional individual on their side.

Our pack needs to be more ruthless in situations like this. Lisone and Sangare should have been more destructive in stints, and Oledski and Holroyd needed to impose themselves much more without the Saints big men to worry about.

Smith complained about the ruck and interruptions to the game (a consistent gripe with him), but ultimately Leeds need to develop a plan B for these 'scrappy' situations because this seems to be our achilles heel at present.

We have become too much of a 'fair weather' team... You can take this both literally and figuratively!