Schoey may get jealous?

I would have thought that results both last season and this actually say something about the whole team (which is largely unchanged under Bluey). The fact is that at their BEST Leeds are capable of beating anyone. However, this team is not and never will be completely dominant. I think the record against Wigan - this year and last - speaks volumes for the fact that if the team is slightly off the boil there are a number of sides around capable of beating them.

As for G1's point, I agree entirely. Some of the stick on here for Smith was farcial in the extreme and seemed to be based on hearsay and a general 'dislike' of the guy. I couldn't give a hoot if the whole team hated him and burnt effigies of him - he still got them to win the GF twice.

How anyone can seriously STILL denigrate the coach who won two GFs on here, and yet support Bluey as though he's playing some sort of 'long-term' poker game, is to be frank, a complete fool. Get over it. Smith won two championships. Until someone else beats that record, he's the best coach Leeds have had in close to 40 years. What next, the old rubbish about how we'd have won in 2004 with DP???

FWIW I believe that Bluey has started to lose patience with some players. His comments after the defeat by Wigan sounded the most frustrated yet. He knows as well as anybody that losing a series of tight games (and lets face it the one win recently was not by the first team) is not the way to go even if we are targetting the CC. If some players expect everything to just 'click' against Sts in the semi and to take the p*ss in the meantime, I think they're deluding themselves.

Gareth makes some good points throughout this thread, so here are mine -

I have thought this for a little while now but Leeds look almost structureless, the more worrying thing for me though is that at points in a game where changes need to made Bluey doesn't do a thing.

Our start to games is shocking, I would love to know how the coaching staff deliver pre game instructions - I aint sure there are any.

Some of the positional decisions border on coaching incompetence and continuing with Ellis at Centre is ridiculous, the fact that Hall is now been exposed by this tactic further shows Blueys change averse management style.

Sinfield continues to hamper the half back combination, his lack of pace both in foot and hand speed is criminal.

Out last play options are pathetic, comes back to structure I guess.

At times we look like we miss a leader, only Senior and Burrow appeared to be delivering any kind of motivation when behind the sticks, Peacock occasionally came in but only rarely.


So the question is, is this 2005? Its a little early to say but its looking that way, the only possitive I can find is that Saints have peaked to early and we've dipped at the right time!!

Everyone should stop there moaning , we are in a dip of form and are still nearly winning games. Looked as though we turned a corner against wigan in the second half, started supporting and off loading more. Bluey has won the WCC has taken us to joint top of the league and a CC Cup Semi. I remember when Leeds fans would have killed for this , the reason he should not got any stick is that he clearly doesn',t deserve it. Get a grip all you moaners we could be Hull and then life would be .

Luckily for you there's nothing in the AUP to stop a poster contributing to a thread they clearly don't understand.

I don't think the thread is about giving Mc Clennan stick.
It is posing the question why did Smith get so much stick for a similar run of results last season?

The cult of personality. Smith projects a degree of unease in front of the media thereby losing rapport with the Leeds fans.

Bluey comes across pretty well earning our fans undying love

Just nuts eh?

There were some encouraging comments from McClennan regarding there being too much "lateral" movement from Leeds in the closing stages when a more direct approach was required. This problem predates McClennan's tenure, btw.

Your initial point was why such leeway for bluey? - My answer was that we can still win every competition this year and untill that changes why should he get stick.

An ability that protected Graham Murray very well late in his tenure.

a point a few of us picked up on over a beer at the celtic game this year!

I've thought about this over the last 24 hours and I've come up with the reason Bluey is getting more support than Smith over a similar run.

It's all down to the shape of his head. Bluey's head is almost rugby ball shaped, thus leading to people believing that he has a "rugby brain". Smith has a head shaped like a tennis ball, so he's considered to have a "tennis brain".

Obviously a "rugby brain" is significantly more use to a rugby coach than a "tennis brain", and so people trust Bluey more than Smith.

It's easy when you think about it..............

I think that it 'helps' Bluey in some way when the fans are now stating to accept that we are going to lose more games than we used to. We're talking of going into the Catalans game (a team that finished bottom three years ago) next week as underdogs and justifiably so.

At the end of last season Tony Smith said that the team that wins the 2008 championship could well lose ten games in the season - I think most of us are probably starting to realise that now.