It took Smith longer than one season. It was obvious the likes of Morley, Hodgson, Carvell were going halfway through 2013 and whilst Briers retired earlier than they'll have planned for it must've been obvious mid-2013 how serious his neck issues were.....so that was mid-2013 when they knew what personnel they were losing and only now at the start of 2016 have they got things looking right again (in comparison we're talking a third of a season so far at Leeds). In 2014 and 2015 it honestly didn't look like Smith had a clue what his favourite 1-7 was and players like Ratchford, Russell, Bridge would swap positions often and he tried Gareth O'Brien at HB but never really seemed to trust him. I recall them starting the 2014 CC Semi against us with Ratchford at 6 and Bridge at centre and then swapping them around at HT in a perfect illustration of how unsure he was of his best lineup. As usual with Smith it was dependent on the generosity of the owners chequebook.

I'm not sure tactics have anything to do with dreadful one-on-one tackle attempts and downright lazy defensive efforts. Especially when things aren't clicking on attack, the defence is the one thing that can be made strong through hard work (the constant mantra from BM and players in the media).

I have to agree that we have too many ordinary Aussies in the pack. They have all come through a clearly superior system, and even if individually not the best going round as a unit they ought to be able to more than hold their own in SL.

Fair comments which underline my point that after losing their key personnel and dropping down the table Warrington did not blame the coach but resolved the problem by recruiting quality half backs and rebalancing their squad.

When hardwork is repeatedly thrown away because of poor options taken on the 5th tackle you don’t apply any pressure to the opposition. That means you get nothing for all that effort and they get off scot free. If they then manage to apply pressure to you on the 5th you’re having to work much harder than they are.

That leads to fatigue and more poor decision making in attack and defence. Players stop operating as a unit and try to do things individually they wouldn’t normally do. The team loses any shape in attack and defensive cohesion goes out of the window.

In the end it affects player confidence and performances can really nosedive.

It’s happening at the Bulls at the moment – the main driver has been a lack of a playmaker for us and a lack of any ideas from the coach. It sounds like the same situation at Leeds.

Aside from clear lack of leadership and direction on the field, 80% of what goes on in a game is mental. BM talked recently in an interview how training wasnt an enjoyable environment to be in at the moment as 'they have to always address the things that are going wrong' this is clearly an approach that isn't working at the moment. I have always believed that the more you enjoy your work the better you perform, sometimes the harder you strive for something the further it gets away and more demoralising it becomes. It's OK talking about technical issues but this game isn't the most complicated, morale is the first thing to address in my view.

If you have seen the PA suite at Leeds the players are analysed right down to the infinite detail and when players are low this is not always helpful, employees are not robots and don't function as such.

How do you address that when you’re in the cycle of matches? You can’t take much time out to do something different can you? I can see how things can get really negative if the team’s doing a lot of things wrong. Before long every training session is about how things went wrong.

As much as fans think they should want to see the players flogged in order to improve its not always the answer. Players don't forget structures, defensively or offensively, taking the pressure off and doing something that brings the team together in other ways, it would not be detrimental to lose a structured session or 2 to develop the morale. What is for sure is that repeating drills ad nauseum is not working.

I appreciate it's a different level of the game but I coached Liam Sutcliffe, Jordan baldwinson et al when they were u14 for Leeds, in our first three games they went in nervous and started poorly and it was 100% down to their mind set, so in the week leading up to St Helens away we mixed some game prep with a lot of more 'fun' core skill games and activities, you could see the weight lifted and we went and beat Sts 0-40. Now I appreciate the difference in context but it's not a million miles apart.

...its not just the activities that are done but the manner in which sessions are held, who's going to thrive in an environment that's all about the negative and fear of getting it right next time out. Look at Paul Anderson at the moment, looks like someone's walked into his house on Christmas day and pi s sed on his kids, whod be motivated to work for that?!

Who's there to tell guys like McDermott, Anderson and Lowes to lighten up? When they're the blokes in charge and have faces like thunder/wet weekend they need strong trustworthy assistants to tell them I suppose.

Think part of the head coaches role to reflect inwardly and recognise this for themselves.

It's human nature, things aren't going right so we try harder and harder to rectify it, becoming more frustrated and at a loss to the situation. negative messages are recycled until they're so deeply ingrained it's hard to get out of. I reflect on it all the time with the players and if we're not in good form I assess how that's affected my 'man management', attitude towards training and relationship with the players.

Fortunately next game up is at a ground Leeds have yet to taste defeat at (5 from 5), in a city Leeds have yet to lose in (19 from 19) during the SL Era.

At least Salford or the Dr have no added motivation to get one over Leeds, or more specifically the coach..... (if we remember last year's weird rant)

I wonder if a bit of an old school approach for one day might help to lift spirits and get the group smiling again. Appreciate the game has moved on but heard hardaker earlier on radio Leeds and he said the team had made same type of mistakes in recent weeks. Let's say today, The whole squad including injured guys had got on a coach and gone to Scarborough. Done a light hearted training session on beach, gone to the south side and played the machines, ice cream at harbour bar, fish and chips and stopped at a pub on way home and had a couple of pints. At end of day jjb gives a rally the troop speech lets train well for rest of week and go for it for rest of season. Tomorrow they would all come in feeling happier and smiling, joking about what had happened day before. It would release the pressure. If half of them are injured or knackered I reckon it would do them all more good than dwelling on more missed tackles etc. they would also put more in for rest of week. A bit of Syd Hynes or Uncle Dougie. just for 1 day.

There's a lot of messages coming out of Headingley about "working harder" and "pulling together" and "grafting our way out of it".

The problems don't appear to be lack of effort, more lack of execution.

Bit of a horrible management cliche, but what's needed appears to be working smarter, not working harder or for longer.

Agree. Some of our class players need a shot of confidence. We know they can do it, they need to believe it again too.