Disagree, were not getting beaten upfront IMO, it’s our execution that’s not working at the moment.

We had plenty opportunities to Win that game last night (we have in most games we’ve lost bar Warrington) but dumb plays and silly errors were our undoing.

We played better and got to a GF when smith didn’t have those things last season. He gets a pre season, begins to bring in his own players and we get worse.

These aren’t good signs of a project that has legs. At the moment, the more influence he has, the worse we get.

Relax Chris it was a joke.

Difficult to tell on here sometimesicon_wink.gif

That’s the thing about long term projects, they take time and aren’t always plain sailing.

Ask Warrington fans.

Fair point.
But I would argue that the dramatic improvement at Warrington is down to the massive investment in recruitment in the last off-season rather than the influence of Powell.
Powell also has proven pedigree in SL. He's not a novice.
Had they lost their first 3 or 4 games however, he would have been sacked. It's a fine line.

We have a lot of cap space being freed up for next year, we simply did not have the cap available to do that much this year recruitment wise.

You’re right Chris, there’s a lot of cap free at the end of this year if we choose to use it. The recruitment next off season will probably set the tone for the next 2-3 years due to contract length of those incoming. It’s important that we get it right, it’s the difference between doing another loop where we are currently and starting to move back up the table.

Definitely, then there are a lot of players OOC next year also. Off the top of my head Myler, Newman, Macdonald, Handley, Martin, Lisone, Olpherts, Sangare, and Mcdonnell from the top 20.

Does that make Kear Warnock?

Some people need to calm down a little, take a backwards step and look at the bigger picture.
Last night, despite the scoreboard, our defence was actually better than it has been. We were not as passive and had a LITTLE line speed. It was our completion rate that was our undoing, you can’t give away that much possession and expect anything. It must of been around 50% to the end of sets and heaven knows how many times we handed possession over on 1st and 2nd tackle and gave away 6 agains. I was worried from the moment I woke up and it was raining. Our execution was awful and seems that it always is in adverse conditions. It really is basic rugby to pass and catch!

But, again, we go back to it, I wish people would stop making these lazy comparisons. If you did a graph of Powell at Warrington, their performances are trending upwards as he's been able to bring his players in. At Leeds, Smith is trending downwards. His pre-season, his signings, are not making us better.

Here's what I think happens - we plod along this season, we might scrape into the playoffs, we might miss out. We don't do anything else. Smith get's another pre-season and more recruitment but we start poorly next season, and it persists, so it becomes clear that it's not working and we sack him. We're then looking for another coach, and talking about how it'll take them a good 2/3 seasons to sort the squad out and how it's a long-term project. It's a vicious cycle.

We've been doing this for 6/7 f*cking years.

It’s not a lazy comparison at all, it’s just an example of how when getting a new coach who needs to sort stuff out it takes time.

Daryl Powell has had two pre seasons and a hand in recruitment for last year and this.

We’re just going to have to agree to disagree, you want Smith sacked and another coaching merry go round after a year of him being here, fine, I think it’s the opposite of what we need to do.

Time will tell.

Yeah agree to disagree. If Smith needs more time, how come he made the Grand final last season, with no recruitment and no pre-season? That's the position I'm coming from.

He needs more time to do what he was brought in to do, irrespective of results good or bad.

Anyway, We might make the GF this season