Top man JJB.

It's not about the quality of the gym/training ground, JJB said the equipment has been better in some of the gyms they've used (right after the floods one place they originally used near Stanningley's ground is the size of a shoebox and not that great). It's having your own private base to work in. The environment you're working in has to be spot on if you're going to do well and a public gym for a sports team isn't that.

If location isn't important then why most of the time in sports do team have much better home records than away records? In rugby at the end of the day it's still just a piece of grass with 13 v 13 yet home field advantage is always seen as that, an advantage. Look at Wigan last year, 100% at home, away from home they lost a lot and with some really poor showings along the way. Why? Look at our Old Trafford showings, as each final passed the team and supporters grew a confidence from playing there and felt comfortable at that particular venue (on the flip side days before the CCF 2014 vs Cas you had people on here saying they didn't fancy going because Wembley just held bad memories from them).

Do you think back in the Sinfield/Peacock days we'd have created that club culture/ethos that helped us win as successfully without a dedicated training base and instead using various venues around the city open to the public? I very seriously doubt it.

Sorry but that's balls. It could explain a slow start to the season, but if Leeds players are so pampered that they let facilities drive abysmal performances for half a season then they all want getting rid of.

As someone else said, none of that explains complete lack of urgency in defence early in games. As an example have a look at Hudds' first two tries last week and explain the complete lack of urgency - first try a simple inside ball not covered by either inside or outside defender, second a half break and Leeds players amble back into the line allowing Hudds to run at a jagged line. If that was down to fatigue we should have let in 60 points, as clearly the only way from there was more fatigue.

The narrative of floods and loss of gym/training facilities as an explanation for poor performances and an embarrassing series of results is set in stone now, to be backed up or interchanged with references to an injury situation of a degree no other SL club has ever had to suffer, all of which qualify as circumstances out of the clubs control.

Everything would be fantastic and hunky dory otherwise and Leeds would be top of the league and still in the CC.

Completey missing/misreading the point just so you can go on about "urgency" again as if you're getting paid every time you use the word.

Like mentioned above it has been said that some of the gym facilities they're using actually have better equipment than what they had so no it's not about being pampered.

As for you're obsession with using the word urgency, and lack of it, just because you see a soft try scored then I suggest you look back at some tries we've conceded in big games in GF's, CCF's, semi's.....you'll find a good share of what you could call soft tries yet I very seriously doubt they were down to not being urgent. You were wrong with your view on Hudds' try the other week and this week you put down the try as "urgency" again when it simply looks like a poor read by Walters in defence. Simply describing a soft try as down to lack of urgency shows a lack of understanding about the game.

Also for you or anybody else who'll respond to my previous post. If you look again I never said it's the reason why we are bottom, I never said it's the sole reason for our problems. It was merely pointing out a key point that the gym usage can't be judged on quality of equipment alone.

Like I asked but neither of the above responses tried to answer? Does anybody truely think we'd have had as much past successes if we always went around using public venues for our training instead of our own personal base?

How many of the other SL clubs have lost their home training base for pre season and half the main season? Where is the evidence to prove this lost facility is not an important factor when added to the appalling injury crisis? It cannot have helped in the treatment of injuries and could well have delayed their rehab too.

No the real reason players aren't returning from injury is because they don't want to return to a struggling team and aren't busting a gut to get back fit.....yet at the same time players are criticised for putting their hand up to play when carrying an injury.......Classic SouthStander logic.

Injuries obviously take their toll on teams and we have been fairly badly hit. So have other teams though. My view is that other teams have copied much better than Leeds because of the different structures played by clubs. Over the last 10 years or so, leeds havent had a set structure, weve generally played more off the cuff. Other sides like Wigan have played a very structured game with everyone knowing their role. Leeds appriach has been very sucessful, however it relies on the brilliance of individuals to mske something happen. If those individuals are injured or retire that plan on something happening falls on less talented players. We are really paying for our lack of structure.
With the old guard gone or going, leeds need to work out a way to play to suit the players we have and we'll have in the future.

None of this explains why defense has been so poor though. Our middle seems weak and slow.

I'm no expert (obviously) but our 'off the cuff' style of play doesn't need that much coaching really does it?

As you say, the players that we rely on for these moments of individual brilliance are either retired or injured which means our coach needs to step up and actually coach. Something that really isn't happening right now if results are the metric of a successful coach.

Where is the evidence to prove it is an important factor? Injuries, virtually every team in SL have had multiple injuries so that is not an excuse/reason why Leeds are currently the worst side in a poor competition.

Anyone..?

June was the original prognosis. Not heard anything to the contrary, although IIRC he had another op a few weeks ago just to tidy things up.

That is fairly good news then; think he could help settle things down a little. Thought with nothing been said it could still be months away.

McDermott said 10 more weeks weeks in his press conf yesterday

Yeah heard it had extended to July. Looks like he won't feature until after the 8's split.