who says he asked to leave?

I get the Myler thing - there is no way you can legislate for that - GH is a very experienced manager who should have seen this coming - I get the notice bit. It is not as if a release hasn't happened before and recently.

I am not one of those who thinks we should have had a replacement - knee jerk is never a good solution. But for any employee in any firm to want a release at such short notice suggets all is not well or GH was hoping for this outcome.

Even if Austin asked for a release, we didn’t need to grant it and let him leave with no replacement, that’s the odd thing and makes me think there’s more to it than simply asking to be released.

I agree, we should have sat him down and got him back onside and to see out the remainder of his deal... why did he need to go to Cas with a few games left because we couldn't confirm his retention or otherwise ?? it makes no sense.... he could have sorted a new deal out elsewhere whilst still playing his contract out for us.

Mustve been something that changed I agree. One minute we are looking to extend, next minute he's out the door.
Smells like we were dragging our heels as we potentially had / have someone lined up and we didnt want to keep Blake once this was confirmed. ATEOTD hes coming up on his last contract so probably wanted a more lengthy one than we wanted to offer or Rohan wanted to add someone else.

It's incredible incompetence if we haven't got two halves lined up knowing full well that both Sezer and Austin were coming to the end of their deals and most likely leaving.
I guess time will tell.
From the outside looking in, the club have clearly accepted that 10th place for this season will do.
I've said previously that I think the ambition of the club these days is to finish in the top 6.
6th place would be considered success.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the ambition is just to avoid relegation.

Not finishing in the top 4 for 6 years and rolling gives you your answer.

I don't think there hasn't been ambition. We've been spending at/near the cap and had marquee players on top, which is a lot more than some clubs can afford. Our team might be bargain basement on the field, but its not in terms of earnings. What we've done is mismanage the whole situation. Until Smith came in there really hadn't been any kind of proper planning, except belatedly a refocus on junior development. That's been the problem.

I rarely come on here anymore, you either get shot down by the fans who believe everything that is said by the club, or in most cases you’re not able to speak because you are shouted down. Leeds are a club in crisis. I June I spoke to one director telling him that with Smith as coach we are going nowhere, just after we had lost to the bottom two teams, one of those teams had lost 14 games on the bounce. I said Smith is way out of his depth. He replied, he totally agreed and that they were on with it.
In August I said to GH that Smith should be sacked, his teams when playing have no idea, they play as a bunch of individuals not as a team, GH replied we have a coach, it’s not his fault the team are playing like this.
Since then how many players who were out of contract at the end of the season were going to have their contracts renewed. They have cleared out players who they believe are not part of the coaches plans. What is happening I have no idea,
I see the front 3 for Wigan next season are all ex Leeds players. We have given an extension of one year to a winger, who is injured most of the time I can’t remember his name. We are letting young players leave to Hull and Wigan, what happened with Cruise Leeming, probably one of our better players.
The only way out of this is to employ a Director of Rugby, a person who is up to date with players as opposed to GH and his old fashioned views.
In addition Someone who has the money has either got to buy either GH shares in the company or Caddick shares, before we end up with a great stadium but a crap team. The only person with this wealth who I know is the Chairman ( I may be wrong here) the chap who owns the equity release firm in Leeds, I believe it’s age partnership. Someone with money and clout needs to get on the board .
I’ve no idea what team we will have next season, I’ve stopped going this season, I am so downbeat with this whole situation I am totally ed off. No other football club or rugby club would put up with this rubbish that is being played on the park. Smith sees things that no other person does, his back room team, full of has beens, why we can’t get DM as a support coach I don’t know.

you are right in so much as the cheerleaders will be along soon.
I'm with you all the way

Leeming was a good player for us but there were flaws to his game. He wasn't helping the ball get out to the outside backs (and it speaks volumes that a 20 year old loose forward was able to do a better job in this respect), and Wane wouldn't pick him for England because of his soft defence.

For me the big issue with Leeming leaving was that the club didn't do anything to fill his place in the squad closer to the time, relatively early in the season. Perhaps the right players weren't around, and perhaps Smith and GH felt that we had adequate players in place to play at hooker to deal with his absence. But at this point of the season it is another quality player we can't count on, which after Austin's departure and Myler's injury (amongst others) further undermines our play-off chances.

Whole league of full of ex Leeds players, so what if Wigan have three of them, sure I read there’s 17 of them playing in CC final. Should we be fuming about that too?

There is lots of e on here too.

Looking forward to the CC final I think it's refreshing to see 2 different clubs taking part. I know some on here have decried the quality of the overall competition but while that may be true it should not detract from Leigh or HKR achievements and good luck to them both and their fans who will be enjoying their weekend at Wembley.

That includes such as Mags and Delaney , but there again they may still be better than some of the trash we have