I've now seen every team in SL either on TV or live this year at some point, and I'm afraid the stark truth is that in terms of performance, potential and squad we look nearer to the bottom four than the top four.

At the moment we're being flattered slightly by the fact that Huddersfield, Hull & Wigan have all also failed to live up to reputation this season, but all of them have got a lot of scope for improvement in them yet. I'm struggling to see where our improvement will come from.

We've been well beaten (in terms of chances and approach play) by some very, very average terms and we haven't turned in a convincing 80 minutes yet. You can consider all kinds of factors for this, but as long as the coaching staff continue to issue bland, meaningless, deluded summaries like TS did last night, why should the players be concerned? After all, they are on the right track.

I hope our transitional period is not as long at the previous one 1994 - 2009.

It was obvious to me from pre season we were a halfback/playmaker and a quality prop short.

Also our season would hinge on Atkins and Bridge playing to their 2011-12 peak.

That for me says everything about this team and there isn't a single reserve in our ranks that can fill any void in it.

I'll upset a few on here but in my head I had written this season off from the start.
In my heart I was looking for hope and what ifs.

The stark truth is were just not good enough in key areas and its not even transitional, the squad as it stands has no improvement in them.

Wholesale changes are required to salvage anything out of 2014 and I can't see that. Even if we brought a quality halfback in tomorrow the team is so low on confidence it would make little different.

From now on...I wont be getting clouded vision just after they win the odd game like Huddersfield.
Huddersfield had one thing on their minds, they were targeting a CC victory and were likely switched off thinking about Saints when we beat them.

Apart from the season we finished top i haven't been convinced of the enduring quality of the side for the last couple of years. I know people talk about only having to do the biz in the last few weeks of the season ,but over the last couple of seasons we haven't been closing games out. Like Morrisey said , some of our players were past it last season ,but they were persevered with in the hope that silverware would come our way. We should really have been rebuilding last year by introducing young players into games more regularly to see what they were capable of. As it is we are now having to put glorified A team players into key positions. Unfortunately for Joel ,he seems to have lost one of his biggest providers of tries now that Briers has gone.

I don't think you'll be the only one who wrote off this season from the start.

I've said from the end of last season that we won't get to the Grand Final this year, and I'll be surprised if we end up in the playoffs. May as well just write this season off as, what some people keep calling, a "transitional period" and then recruit heavy for next year.

But of course, my negativity was met with the usual naysayers who don't take kindly to negative comments made about the club, and especially the coach who is virtually untouchable, no matter how crap we are playing.

42 points and eight tries in four home matches this season. That says it all.
320 minutes of dung rugby.
No wonder the crowds are dwindling and the place is like a library.
This is not the way to sell your club to the part-time or new fan and I think it may well get worse before it gets better.
Walking to the HJ on Good Friday will feel like I'm walking to my own hanging - exactly like it felt in 2002.
If Smith or any of the players looked or sounded even remotely d about the dross we are churning out then I might be slightly reassured, but it's just rhetorical denial.

Smith has made all the (largely bad) decisions that have resulted in this mess.

I don't give a damn what anyone else thinks, I think it's time to start looking for a new coach and I hope the search is already underway.

Matty Russell is a huge problem for us... he is great on the Eye when running the ball out from the back, and when the team is largely rubbish and lacking effort and skill, he looks quite good.
Unfortunately he doesnt link up at all with the backs like Hodgson did (who does though) but more worringly he doesnt do it as much as Mathers did.

Its players like this that just make us massively weaker all round the park.


We missed Hodgson Last night more than any of the other departees.

favourite moment for me last night was in the last couple of Minutes Waterhouse put a decent hit on a player and stood over him with the billy big balls stance he does as if to say "did you like that" and the dummy half picked the ball up and ran right past him without him even knowing.

It was disgraceful but funny in a painful kind of way.

I dont have a game in my immediate memory bank that I can say was as bad as that.

Tony Smith defend that at your peril

TS can't be serious with his post match comments. Can he?

Wow.

Bottom 4? Blimey

I do find it funny how we win this game in past seasons there would hardly be two pages on it, now we lose its a massive issue.

Glad we won last week instead, not been Wembley for awhile.

What concerns me is certain players didn't seem to grasp that we'd knocked KR out the cup last week and they would be hurt.. We just we'rent up for the fight they simply wanted it more... Players like Mick Mona's and Bridge have lost their self belief... And the crowd seems to have given up too, it was like a library last night..!

I said something similar about Russell on a thread the other week.
Running it in he's brilliant, industrious and gets us on the front foot.
He's brave and he's got that knack of knocking off tacklers.

I noticed though that he does on ocassions slow down attacking plays, he chimes in and almost stops play.
Can't fault his effort though.

I do love some of the comments on twitter blowing Fiddlers ferry amounts of smoke up his backside.
The same people who think 5 scoot rugby is exciting.

I know he is a bit raw but far too early to start writing off a player with such potential. He is a spark that must be developed in to a complete player and is some way off but the foundations are there and the spark is very bright with this one. I think he could become a very important player for us in the future.