Did Don Furner eat Frank 'Biscuits' Stanton.

Beat me to it.

Quite frankly, he always has considered himself the Don.

Begs the question why you asked in the first place?

Quite right and also quite evident

Lets not forget that it's taken quite a bit of cash to get Warrington above us and others and to get those 3 cups of theirs. The last game between Leeds and Warrington with Tony Smith as Leeds boss on 1st-June-2007 @ Headingley compared to the Wembley line-up.

Brent Grose..........Brett Hodgson
Chris Riley..........Chris Riley
Henry Fa'afili.........Stefan Ratchford
Paul Johnson..........Ryan Atkins
Kevin Penny.........Joel Mongahan
Jon Clarke..........Lee Briers
Lee Briers..........Richie Myler
Paul Wood..........Chris Hill
Mark Gleeson........Mickey Higham
Adrian Morley..........Gareth Carvell
Mike Wainwright.........Trent Waterhouse
Ben Westwood..........Ben Westwood
Rob Parker.........Ben Harrison

Andy Bracek.........Adrian Morley
Michael Sullivan.........Michael Monaghan
Paul Rauhihi............Paul Wood
Steve Pickersgill............Tyrone McCarthy (not to mention David Solomona & Chris Bridge too)

Wigan have been able to match them in terms of results the last few years but with the likes of Leuluai and Finch being replaced by Matty Smith and Blake Green they too are going to struggle to keep up with Warrington, if Sam Tomkins does leave sometime for the NRL or Union then Warrington will be out of sight for them too.
We can talk about OOC players and attacking and defensive structures and young players but in reality what a team is going to need to keep tabs with let alone overtake Warrington is to splash the cash, and that's not the style of the Leeds management in the last few years. Either that or hope they make a complete pig's ear out of who they hire as coach whenever Tony Smith leaves.

Can we have a clear out of the dead wood on the forum please?

There'd be nobody left.

Fair point. What if we kept not-been-dead-for-quite-as-long wood?

What this forum really needs is for the club to keep all it's dead wood for as long as possible.

Because, prior to my question, Juan appeared to make it a prerequisite to posting an opinion that you held a coaching badge.

HTH

Well, it could get lonely on those long tours but i won't tell. What goes on tour stays on tour.

I am not sure that was the quite case - I think you were just hoping for some easy points!!

I think we are paying the price for our promote from within approach, which I still believe is the key to long term success.

The problem has been that the players coming along have not been as good (or the potential to be as good) as the players we have had to replace.

I don't think we have adequately replaced Buderus, Ali, Senior, Eastwood, with players of similar quality or potential to be there.

The best model for how this should work was Ablett effectively replacing Ellis, after playing along side him in the squad for a couple of years.

I'm hoping that pattern is being repeated for Sinfield with Ward, but I don't see Peacock's successor coming from within, and its a massive hole to fill.

As such I don't think its a case of deadwood out, its about its about managing our squad and identifying where the replacements are going to come from, and if the right option is not available internally, look a bit further afield

It quite obviously was. Did you miss his response to TVOC with this?



Why are you try to provoke a debate about what Juan wrote? It's there for anyone who can read to see and it's there for anyone with a brain to interpret. Bored?

JP was a signing from outside anyway Eagle so it's not a bad thing to sign a replacement from outside.
FWIW i think yer been harsh on some of the younger lads coming through from the Acadamy i think Watkins,Mcshane ,Singleton ,D,smith and Ward etc will prove to be real quality for us given the games and time.
Also the times have changed since we were able to bring in Ali and Webb so the longer term replacements should be from within IF we cant sign the required quality.
I hope we dont have to sign players like Hauraki again tbh and would much rather hrow a raw 18/19 yr old into the mix.