Its still puzzling to hear Ben Harrisons name - surely he would be able to do a forwards job off the bench better than some of those recently seen.
Theres a lot of puzzling stuff going on

It took Mr Agar 4 years to take us from Top 2 to Bottom 4, so it doesn't surprise me but hey you never know what might happen with him if Mr Smith leaves.

Stand in until end of Season ??

well, there's another thing, are the players being affected by the weird way that Harrison has been frozen out of the team?

Can't be very good seeing that happen to a teammate knowing it could be you depending on how the coach feels

A peculiar situation that has never been explained.
Can't be affecting them too much, they lost 12- in his testimonial this season too!

Could do a lot worse than Harrison, not a world beater but always gives 100% & probably better bet than some in our present team. Strange how many fallings out & fallings out of favour have happened in the last few years ,maybe a bad apple somewhere in the camp ?

During his time at Leeds, Smith made some unusual decisions. Matt Adamson, a player very much in form, was quite vocal about Smith's coaching approach when he was left out of the Grand Final team in 2004 with McKenna being chosen ahead of him. It could just have been sour grapes from Adamson of course. It was a coaching move which confused some, but went largely un-noticed once Leeds went on the win that year.

Personally, I believe Smith is an excellent coach and a skilled tactician. You're going through what Leeds went through last year, what Wigan went through in 2006 and what Saints could go through unless they do something drastic!

Ride the storm. You'll come good.

Didn't Smith leave Barry Mcdermott out of a challenge cup final against Hull FC and played a crocked Keith Senior.
I get the feeling that the longer Smith hands around the more he alienates himself from the players. That is hard to recover from.
I think the worst signing of all is Gidley. I like the bloke but I get the impression he was supposed to be the on field leader (like monaghan was) but it looks like the players are not buying into that.

Coaches are supposed to be willing to make big decisions even when it comes to well established players. That will lead to some players moaning about the coach but in those situations mentioned above - Matt Adamson and Barrie McDermott, what did those two players go on to do to show that Smith was wrong in his decision?

They were both players at end of their careers, as was Brett Hodgson when he was left out of the Grand Final with us. He got criticised for it but many coaches live in fear of big names in the dressing room and pick players on reputation rather than form.

In fact you could say Smith should have been bolder when it came to taking on the big names in the dressing room. He got criticised for leaving Hodgson out for one game - but people on here have said Smith was at fault for letting all the senior players get to the end of their careers together like Ferguson did at United.

I'd have been interested to see how some of the critics on here would have handled the situation in 2011-13. Would they have moved Hodgson on a season or two earlier, along with Michael Monaghan, Briers, Morley etc? Any coach that had started doing that would have risked alienating their allies and been accused by fans of "losing the dressing room" especially if the players had gone on to have a final season or two elsewhere when they were still performing well. But would it have been worth being ruthless with some of the dominant personalities in the dressing room to bring in some younger replacements.

plenty of drinking and late nights, in the kitchen with my mates, figuring out tactics... that would probably have been my approach.

Didn't Smith block Harrisons move to Leigh at the end of last season? To leave him in the stand. What a man manager. Whata Moron

Back on topic leaving other fans gripes apart.. I think this now very serious after Saints win tonight and when they beat us on Friday we will be cut adrift... Prepare for the middle 8's.. I feel physically sick to be honest..

Speaking from the experience of leeds last year .....prepare for hell. You're a scalp for everyone and when you're at the bottom EVERYTHING goes against you. I remember one game last year away at warrington when absolutely everything was going against us and your fans chanted 'ooooooooooh YOU'RE SH*T''.

Aww bless.. It's not as if we don't get W###y Warrington chanted at us multiple times per match by Leeds fans and everyone else for that matter..
How did that other song go you lot used to sing at Headingley.. Oh yes... "It's a long way back to........when you're S**t"

Don't worry Flex we have far more experience than Leeds in being crap so we are used to it.

For many years we were seen as an easy target for boosting confidence and points difference by the likes of Bradford, Wigan, Leeds and Saints, and we were a 'scalp' for the likes of Salford, Wakefield, Widnes and Huddersfield who saw us as a club with pretensions to be bigger than we were, that was relatively beatable. Although they would hate to admit it, wins over Wire were the biggest thing of their season. That was when we hadn't won anything of note for decades, now we are relatively recent three times Challenge Cup winners we will be even more fun to beat - a bit like Everton were seen in the early Nineties when they were in relegation battles.

I think now we have rejoined the cycle of the clubs (outside the traditional elite) that have risen and then started to fall. It happened to Hull after their resurgence under Kear and Peter Sharp, and now risen again. It happened to Huddersfield and it may yet happen to Castleford. One thing we should be thankful for is we picked up more silverware on the way than those others.

Nonsense sally, were on the decline du to rugby leagues very own n wrengee who has remained too comfortable in his job for too long now and is too stubborn to acknowledge that rugby has moved on for better or worse is another debate.

He came in made an impact won some trophies in the first half of his time here the latter part of his time has not been anywhere as successful, would we be on the perceived decline if we had decided after failing to win our second attempt at the grand final?

Our problem as a club is not knowing when to make the changes required to continue progressing probably due to the usual who do we replace him with question and the fear of the unknown or untested. These are not reasons to not make a change.