100% agree I don't mind the defeats as long as we are competitive and can demonstrate some attacking structure establish field position and cut out basic errors.
Thats the concern for me that we don't appear to be progressing in any of these areas. We had some decent results last year against the top teams but in most cases they were in crazy games with no structure built on one fantastic half of rugby and some top individual performances mainly from Austin in the half dozen games he turned up in over 2 years. Thats not the foundation for consistent success. On paper in theory if we get all our players fit we should be competitive and I really hope that we can turn things around as there is no obvious easily attainable coaching solution currently available so hopefully RS can ride things out and deliver improved consistency and address the issues Unfortunately what I am currently watching every week tells me the July is out on if he can. With 2 weeks off to prepare we should hopefully see some improvements in the basicsif we are working on the right areas

that is my big bugbear.
everyone can see the issues except the man in charge who continues with the same failing tactics he has used, and failed with, for 18 months.
that's why I'm convinced nothing will change until the coach is changed

Thats your issue Tadders, tell me, how many Rhino's coaches have you been happy with for the last 20 years?
How many of the current crop of players do you rate and would keep?
Who do you think that is attainable we should recruit as a coach and how much have they won?
Its so easy to snipe from the background, how difficult should it be to be constructive ?

what is there to be constructive about?
the last good coach was macdermott. agar steadied the ship well but stayed too long.
this group is capable of much more. i said last year graham Murray would have this group top 5 easily. not winning but competing.
im not sure, after 18 months of rubbish and not signs of change, how people can still think smith turns this around.
he is set on playing this style. that's fine. he is the coach its his choice. but he also has to face the criticism when it blatantly doesnt work yet carries on. I work with a guy who won SL, not with leeds, who can't believe what he sees.im with him

I'm no Agar apologist, as I don't think he was the answer, but one thing that doesn't seem to be acknowledged is that Smith got us to the GF completely utilising Agar's system / style. It was the following year we completely changed the playing style and tactics. At the time, that made sense, we got all our injuries back and put a decent run together having practiced that style in pre-season. We obviously got battered in the final, but we did not get there playing Rohan-ball.

Whatever Rohan's style is, and perhaps too much is made of it, I'm not sure he has the players to execute it. We are getting battered in the collision too often bringing it away from our line, fail to establish momentum, we lose the ruck too often and then pile pressure on ourselves by repeated basic mistakes.

The playing roster comes back round to Rohan again ultimately, but the first half we played against Saints in the league at home, we were more than competitive. Our main issue to me seems that we can't sustain playing well for long enough. Whether this is truly down to lack of structure, the need for some better quality players or a combination of all these things... I keep saying it but performances are multi-factoral, and not all of it is down the the coach.

Agreed. What I’ve noticed is that we can’t stay with good teams when they up the intensity. Multifactorial reasons……

So if we don't have the players to execute the playing style, why do we persist with it? Isn't that Einstein's definition of insanity?

I'm sure if we were top of the league some would be shouting from the rooftops how smith, and his style of play, were genius.

when it's obviously not working but persisted with its not his fault

Sorry but to not give Smith any credit for 2022 and giving it to Agar seems like revisionist stuff to me.

We did change style and the ‘passive defence’ thst people talk about came into effect when he came and it was the correct thing to do because our defence was all over the shop.

We didn’t get battered in the final either

If you don’t like what Smith is doing now fine, but let’s not rewrite history

If we could play the way we did for the first 30 mins against Saints consistently we'd be top of the league and Rohan would be the messiah. The problem is that we can't, and in truth, haven't even come close to it again. Which makes him, sadly, a very naughty boy.

yep, what did rohan do for us?

This. All of this.
Unfortunately I have ran out of faith with Rohan, we were told it wasn't his squad, that we'd improve when he got his players in, we'd improve when he had a "proper pre season" Things would improve when players bought into the system / changed the culture / bought into his style / took on board his tactics. We'd improve when the ground firms up, when we get players back on and on the excuses go.

Honestly, its Jesse Marsch all over again at another major Leeds club. The game Rohan talks and the one that appears on the field are two radically different beasts, hes been in charge for nearly 2 years and the performances have not improved and he's been living off that magical Cinderella run to the GF since despite all signs pointing to him setting up his teams to burn brightly for all of 10-20 mins in a game.

I REALLY hope Im wrong, I really hope that he has some masterplan under his cap but as I said, Im completely checked out on this total myth and the cult of personality thats built up around him.

Sorry for the thread drift.

RS took us to a GF, and moved on a lot of the expensive (Tetevano, Sezer) or poor McDermott, Furner and Agar era signings and retentions (e.g. Dwyer, Sutcliffe) that most people were demanding on here. He also put faith in younger players like O'Connor and Walters that Agar was reluctant to do (Agar only had eyes for solid pros like Bodene Thompson). He's signed better players (Croft, McDonnell etc) but also made amends by moving on players that didn't work out (e.g. Olpherts). He's not the revolutionary we hoped for but he's been better than his predecessors. I think he'll leave the squad in a better place than when he arrived.

How does he compare to past coaches? Right now he's just above Dean Lance in my view, while working in a much more competitive salary capped environment. Definitely above Furner, Sinfield, Agar, and McDermott post 2017.

Of course, we all know that in reality the 2022 run was all masterminded by the residue of Agar's structures and JJB's instilling of 'fortitude'

Leaving the squad and club in a better place was a massive part of his remit imo.

Funny you mention Dwyer and Oconner, it was Smith who saw OConner as a hooker Nd ultimately he replaced Dwyer in 2022, suppose that was down to Agar aswell?