Yeah, that's my thought too, watching them yesterday it was just shocking how that team looked a shadow of it's previous attack minded self.

No. The only coach we need to look at when trying to pinpoint fault was the one who was in position for 6 years, not one who had just 14 games. People have short memories.

Agreed. Lowes has to be held accountable.

But this team is playing nothing like any of Cullen's teams, this is why I'm not convinced by that.

We have had many debates about Cullen, and there was clearly too much of an emphasis on attack for us to win anything, but this team looks nothing like anything Cullen did with them.

Also agreed. What Lowes has done in pre-season has been totally inadequate on several levels.

At least the players (on the whole) looked as though they wanted to actually play under Cullen. And play with some degree of style.

I cannot disagree that the playing style has changed. But PC presided over a significant period of time in which he was content to re-sign under performing players, make hit and miss overseas signings which continue to dog subsequent managers, having a self confessed relaxed attitude to off field discipline and allowing malcontent to fester in the dressing room. PC needed to go, lets not forget that.

Please explain where you think Cullen did well ????????????
Cullen under achieved,he was found wanting in all aspects of his coaching and when appointed had little more experience than Lowes did ,to sum it up Cullen was the wrong appointment when he was 1st given the job ,yes he did keep us up but any new coach uplifts a team for a few games it is what he achieved since then and with the amount of money that has been thrown at it he FAILED in every area of his reign .

Yep, but that was last season's debate, and he went.

If this team was still playing like they were under Cullen, then IMO you could still hold him accountable here, and claim it is his legacy, however all the good things fom Cullen's reign seem to have been stripped out, and not replaced by anything good.

He looks like an overachiever compared to what is happening now.

The pre-season dictates your whole season, remember Lowes will have had a completely different set of principles in terms of attack and defensive structures, team discipline that he needed to get across in the pre-season and either they have come across badly to the players and they haven't fully undertood them, they simply didn't work or the players didn't buy into what he was trying to do.

It isn't just about telling a team what you want them to do, they have to understand it and also the reasons behind it before they will really want to take it on and make it their own.

I also don't think our pre-season has prepared the team phisically for the season correctly. We looked exausted in that heat yesterday, Cas had also had a game 3 days before hand and didn't look half as tired as the Warrington players.

Smith is the antihesis of Cullen. It is clear to see that Smith is rebuilding our defence, an area of our game frequently criticised and rightly so.

It takes me back to the booing at HT yesterday. The scrambling and line defence, tracking back is something I haven't seen the the Johnson era. Clueless, all of them, except me and Keith.

Maybe it'd have been different if Smith had taken straight over from Cullen. We had a side playing 'showbiz' rugby, regularly scoring 30+ points per game & losing, like the Castleford game that brought Culls demise. Smith may have been able to come in, just keep the attcking structures that were in place, work on the defence, and gone with an outlook of 'If I can stop them conceding 1/2 tries a game, we'll win alot of these games'. It'd have been more of a tweaks than changes approach.

Fast forward to now, he's took over a side that couldn't defend for toffee, has struggled to score points all year, and is absolutely void of confidence, dating back to somewhere around last August, I think we have the second/third worst attack something like that, and he really has no foundations to base anything on, so he's gone literally back to square one. He's implemeting his defensive ideas, and they are obviously getting across. Maybe he thinks he can only fix one thing at a time, he'll look at his time here and see the defense improving, Matt King as an individual improving, Harrison arguably, and take positives, and see that there has been a response of sort, you've just got to believe in what your doing, and I believe in him, 100%

The end of the year, we'll see a large number of the players getting the chop, and thankfully a majority of the backroom staff, fitness guy etc are on one year deals, so we can go with a completely new broom if that's what Smith wants to do, and he can inject his ideas further on the team.

The pre-season MUST have a big influence on the season - if it didn't, clubs wouldn't bother with them. We started preparing for this season way back in October - Lowes pulled out of assisting with England to focus on club duties. It's clear the preperations have been substandard.

Yes!

Oh I agree, I'm just simply shocked that any skill with the ball that they seemed have under Cullen seems to have been erased from their skillset!

Can a bad pre-season have such a negative impact, or do we think it is a combination of focus, attitude, tactics, confidence etc? Some of the passing yesterday was really poor, when moving the ball wide has always been a real strength of ours, with most of those players being involved previously.