This.

Last season’s pre-season was farcical and culminated in an awful showing in the first SL game again Warrington.

The warning signs were all there.

Rohan Smith’s continued tenure is damaging the club and the player’s careers.

Think people get too angry on here. Supposed to be enjoyable. I’m Not a fan of hounding anyone out.

I’m not a fan of every single thread being hijacked by “smith out” posts. Can we try to keep at least some discussion on other topics please?

I’m also getting bored with being told I know nothing and I’m a cultist or whatever just because I might not agree with the majority. You can either have a forum of fans and respect other opinions to your own, or I’ll leave everyone to their whinge festing.

I have always held the view that Smith may indeed need to be replaced at some point, but the conduct on here and at times on the terraces is not doing it for me.

jim. I like you and your posts.

but it's excuses all the way


weather
injuries
referees
luck


there's always a reason
smith plainly is nowhere good enough. he's miles out of his depth. another failed hetherington project

Am I missing something?

Yes, a decent rugby league coach in charge of my team.

There's always going to be robust debate when the team is playing badly. This forum is a very good indicator of how we're going - doing well and all's quiet, doing badly and its Piccadilly Circus.

I don't think there are Smith cultists - more optimists. I just think there's very little evidence that we're going to do anything other than meander to another nothing season, and the performances are going the wrong way. Smith has been in the job for two years now, and this year brought in some big money players, and yet it all feels a lot like last year, with so many of the same problems, which are utterly fundamental.

Its that basic nature of our problems which gives me little hope. League is at heart a simple game - possession, position, taking chances. If we lose the yardage game by a long way, make a huge number of poor errors, and our kicking game and attack are toothless, then we're going to lose more than we win. Those things have to change.

I get that but follow the logic: if you have half a team missing then you cannot expect the same level of performance (otherwise why bother with signing decent players at all) - and it’s more likely you’ll lose. Against the top sides the margins are slim and absolutely it makes a difference, regardless of coaching.

My main beef with us this year is the signings again rather than the way we’re playing as such - we look like we’ve dropped a muff again with Frawley in a real key position. I’m sick of us signing other clubs cast-offs and projects, and then being surprised when we’re stuck in mid-table world.

Yep agree but where was Croft last night? He plays, we might well win that game. It’s ok people banging on about what a big club we are, and we should this and should that: but the players who take the actual field in the real world matter with results.

I doubt at this stage that anyone is likely to change their minds re: the coaching situation.

Agree on the point by Once were Loiners on optimism rather than being die-hard fans of Smith. Some of the vitriol directed at Smith isn't fair: I read one comment on YouTube suggesting that it was JJB rather than RS who was responsible for our GF run a couple of years ago.

I think the problem with the debate is that there's no direct evidence that the coach is responsible for everything going on on the field. Certainly he's not making the handling errors or penalties that are killing us every week. But it is his squad, and the lack of depth and quality in some positions is down to Smith. Smith can influence the game through messages being sent out, half-time talk, and substitutions etc.

Looking at the squad, to be honest I expected more from the forwards. Penalties and errors are killing us because the forwards seem incapable of bending the line apart from the odd carry from Oledski, 5 minutes either side of half-time by Lisone. I'm not sure any of our injured players can offer us much more in this regard. Some of the signings, e.g. Goudemand and the extension of Bentley look questionable, even though both players have been decent for us, they are not of the quality demanded at a club like Leeds. Whomever is responsible for managing the cap made a big error in not signing a durable pack leader.

The spine is mostly fine, especially if Frawley makes way for Sinfield at some point. We missed Croft and his regular try assists. Miller, sadly, is the new Konrad Hurrell - a really exciting player when the team have their tails up, but when the chips are down he's got too many errors in him (I like Miller, and hope he can improve).

The first choice backline is very decent, but on the evidence of the season so far there is a major issue with depth. Roberts is a case in point; he's our first reserve, solid defensively, offers very little in attack, and makes more errors than any other player in the team (SL website). He's still young, but as our first reserve isn't offering a great deal more than Olpherts did. Edgell may have more time but he looks too small to have any real impact with the ball in hand. Some of the others we saw in the friendlies looked more promising; I don't really understand how the pecking order for younger players coming into the team works...

The hard truth is that we won’t do much consistently until the youth comes through and matures. We are still a way off, and we need to make another couple of real high level signings in the meantime.

The hard truth is that any decent youth that does come through will do nothing under Smith, and likely leave for another club. Absolutely no players are actually developing and getting better under Smith. Most stagnate and get worse.

This isn’t complicated, Smith just isn’t a very good coach. It’s not knee-jerk (it’s been 2 years), there are no mitigating circumstances, injuries, the weather, bad hair day. A good coach makes you say “wow, look how well we’re doing with xxx out,
imagine how good we’ll be when they’re back. When you have a good coach, you don’t need to make excuses for how bad you are because you end up not being bad, because they are a good coach.

There’s absolutely no excuse for Leeds to be as poor as they are, except for incompetence.

I just find this argument illogical again I'm sorry - there are some very valid reasons indeed why we are poor at times. I'm absolutely saying that some of that is down to the coach. There are mitigating circumstances however and that's clear.

Maybe we do need to change the coach to help bring success to Leeds; but two more very high quality players in key positions and some better luck with injuries would help too.

I'm very much with Chris's analysis from the Pod on this - I'm a little ambivalent towards RS, I like the guy and think he's done lots of good things for Leeds, but there are frustrations with how we're playing and his selections at times - particularly these late cameo appearances which drive me crazy. Johnson was MoM in the reserves and then gets no game time against Cats, I see the point in having some cover but it's a really negative use of the bench in tiring conditions.

He'll either pull it round this year when players come back or he won't - either way in all honesty I think we need to give players game time and development this year to stand us in good stead for 2025. I know some don't like that but that is the smart approach to me, because we do genuinely have talent coming through into first grade now and there are more to come. We are very solid at centre and back row for a long time to come from our academy.

I agree with giving the kids a chance this season, but I don't see much point in playing them out of position or in very brief cameos when the game is dead. What exactly did Johnson's 3 minutes on the pitch achieve - either for the team or the player? Same with Ruan in recent games. Either pick him and trust him to play a normal role off the bench as part of the forward rotation, or don't pick him at all.

Attitude is non negotiable as a pro rl player watching the team getting back on the coach post match you would have thought we had won the game no one seemed that bothered CEO included.

Smith it seems is just one step removed from McDermott's days of just using 3 subs. Maybe he's got a hooker fettish too like David waite had for loose forwards. Injuries accepted some of these selections are just bizarre and unfortunately wilkin summed us up well.

Sorry for another negative post I get the desire to be positive but this turd is really taking some polishing.