Very interesting interview, like most Aussies I know he’s direct and honest about the state of the club and playing side. I liked the fact he wants to return to a style of rugby that we know works, he’s clearly despatched the RS game plan, and replaced it with the simple fundamentals of RL, run hard, win collisions, earn the right to throw the ball around when you’ve got field position.

We will improve under him, however long he’s here for.

He seemed to go against every Rohan philosophy of rugby i.e. passive defence, soft rugby, touch and pass, earning the right to play etc.

He also mentioned how it was difficult to assess players on previous performances as they were essentially being asked to play another sport. See how these players perform when playing proper rugby before judging. I suspect some players will look much better when playing rugby the way it is meant to be played.

It's quite scary that everyone is simply relieved to have a coach who wants to do the basics rather than try take shortcuts etc.

Lots of good stuff ?. Smith has absolutely devasted us, no apologies for once again pointing out that he has set us back a few seasons with his hopeless signings. Obviously we have contractual obligations to them so it will be quite some time before we can offload them. Errors in recruitment has to be the biggest understatement of the year. The situation with Arthur whilst welcome is far from ideal, this is due entirely to Smiths incompetence. Arthur has at least given us a framework/format to work with, ironically it’s more or less what several of us have been advocating for months. Expecting a big aggressive performance in our next game. Failing that we are really up the creek without a paddle.

The initial impression is how far ahead of the SL the NRL is - different game.

I like his honesty - he wants to be in the NRL.

Arthur is a serious coach - it will be a shock to some of the players the standards he will require in training never mind on the field. Interesting see how often he mentions Blease.

No matter how long he stays he will add some real value to the Rhinos - it will show the quality the club needs when it appoints the next coach - possibly Arthur will recommend an emerging coach to replace him.

Arthur IMO is levels above most if not all coaches in SL. Will be very interesting to see how the players react to his coaching.

It's lightyears ahead. SL will never ever be as good but it has fallen back even further in recent years but that's a different topic all together..

Depressingly you are correct, however they seem to do the basics better than us. Mainly running hard on to the ball and an aggressive defence. If we could adopt that mentality it would give us a good platform to close game’s out. On the plus side, I am optimistic as to the future for the team as we have finally come to the conclusion that we aren’t doing the basics right. I might be wrong, but I think Smiths plan was to have a lightweight pack and play a high tempo game. Eventually wearing teams down, anyway that’s all in the past.

Watching the SOO shows how far behind SL is. Incredible game.

Short dropouts a feature

Good to see some positivity on here for a change.

Arthur is making lots of encouraging comments, but he's also made it clear we can't expect miracles. Anyway, let's see how he goes after 10 games - and where he goes next.

Part of Smith's problem was the raised expectations many of us had of him. The guy did do some impressive stuff here. We did not make the GF by being 'soft'. Beating Wigan away was no easy job, and that team absorbed tons of pressure and physical attrition from Wigan and still found a way to win.

Just before our current season imploded, the way we played in that first game against Saints had lots of people on this forum excited, and many agreed it was the best rugby we had produced in years. I don't think I've seen Newman run as hard and look as dangerous ever since (not to mention several others). I suspect that psychologically the players put so much into that game that to not come away with anything dealt crippling blows to a lot of confidences. Ultimately we weren't able to play at that tempo with high skill as Smith wanted, and the experiment failed...

Genuinely curious to see what Arthur can get out of the forwards (who are now missing three middles) on Saturday and for the rest of the year. Worth remembering that we were getting beaten in the pack for a long, long time before Smith's arrival, and his inititially successful approach was born out the need to work around that weakness. Just hoping there is the same level of positivity around the coach at five on Saturday, because I think we're really up against it.