I think last nights result has brought a few back down with a bump, this squad is pre dominantly still the same squad that had major attitude and consistency problems.

I dont think Tony Smith has got a magic wand. We have a mixture of average players really overrated by our fans and also some with questionable mentalitys
Those are the facts.

Worked all pre season predominantly on defence and still cannot defend. At some point you have to say we need to move some on who arnt up to the expected defensive requirements.

Alot out of contract at the end of the season which is a blessing in disguise as it should allow us some shrewd recruitment under smith.

Just hope hes ruthless and doesnt end up keeping the obvious ones just because they had one good game here and there.

Mitch for Mcintosh
Carlos for Scott
Lovodua for mcnamara
Cator for Lane

Would certainley shore up the defence some.but i expect a season of inconsistency until we can get another 5 signings through the door .

Can’t argue with that. The 2 players that concern me the most are Lane & McIntosh, both have been pretty poor so far this season and I can’t remember McIntosh having anything more than a 6 out of 10 game since he joined us and can’t remember the last time Lane had decent game.

Evans also really needs to step up another level of two for a quota player we just don’t get enough from him.

Not to worried by the loss , the score line was a bit of a surprise though but it's early days yet and plenty of work still to be done . See how the team responds next week against Salford . I'd take 3 from our first 4 games .

i agree defence is a worry and we can now see why Dwyer was released by Leeds.No doubting his attacking flair but defence is shocking and once a player is through that gap its normally try time.
My other concern is about the lack of aggression in our play whether its running with the ball or defending.Our forwards in particular need to show much more aggression when carrying the ball and making a tackle.Smith has already remarked about our poor tackling technique allowing too many offloads so its a major area we need to improve.
Expect to see several changes for Salford.
Houghton definitely will be back

Yes Rovers were 11th when Tony took over and 3 years later when he was sacked we were 10th. Thank you Danny McGuire for getting the team re-energised and back up to 8th. And of course for 4-36.

Tony Smith is yesterday's man and Rovers probably wrung out the last dregs of his good years.

Just glossing over the fact he took you from relegation fodder to a play off team in 2 seasons.

Everyone is so quick to pile on McIntosh and are quick to ignore the positives he shows

Against Leeds he made a fantastic chase back and stopped a certain try and against Catalan he made another top defensive read which stopped a try.

Any try that goes down his wing he gets the blame for. For example I’ve seen so many people slagging him off for Catalans first try.

If you think he’s to blame you simply don’t understand rugby. I’m not sure if it’s TS for us to defend so narrowly but we do. For Catalan if anyone is to blame its Jordan Lane. He is too slow to pull across which means Ben Mac is stuck to the back rower and Catalan get a simple 3 on 2. Any SL side should score in that situation.

Changes that need to be mate are:

Carlos for Scott. Not because Scott has let side down but because Carlos is just integral.

Savelio for lane. Better carrier off ball and better defensively.

Trueman for Ben Mac. Benny just can’t influence a game enough. Can catch and pass but not impact game enough imo. (Needs must whilst Jake is out)

Then from there we should be solid and have a pretty decent season. Just need an extra Second Row & Prop on top of what we have for next season I think

Ellis is a legend but at what point do we start to think that he’s not up to it as a defensive coach

Definitely seems to suffer from selective memory

I dont get how Ellis cops the blame, surely the players have to be accountable for poor defence as their on the pitch.

Its been pointed out about the upper body grabby technique against Cas , yet lo and behold certain players carried on with it against Leeds.

If players arnt listening to coachs and changing their ways, you generally replace them........

Jordan Lane prime example, needs to buck up or be shipped out.

In Smiths post game comments after the Cats game that’s one of the things he spoke about in regards the tackling efforts/techniques [i“It’s really hard to get a foothold, particularly when you’re making as many errors as we were and then poor defence and defensive reads/contacts. Our hit and stick was way off there tonight. Not only did it mean an attempt at tackle, it meant two or three attempts of a tackle in one play and that hurt us”[/i.
The positive is we have an experienced Coach who has been there, seen it and done and won’t accept that from the players and will let them know.
We all know this season is about making the necessary changes to the fabric of the team rather than mounting any sort of challenge. I can see a raft of comings and going’s before the 2024 season starts.

He said a few months ago in a radio interview he's not the coach that has a pop at the players

So he won't do that

But he should cause although we're 2 from 3 we wasn't far off losing all 3

And playing likes of mcintosh and lane despite been terrible is a bit of concern

Yet he acknowledged he’d said a few things to the players at half time against Cas which he said possibly took some of the wind out their sails. I doubt he isn’t going to address things with the players and hearing from players who’ve played under him have all said although he likes to have fun he tells it as it is.

As for playing Lane & McIntosh who would you suggest he put in instead when already missing the likes of Savelio, Sao, Carlos and injuries to some of the fringe players along with Mitch still recovering. So no real surprise that they’ve stayed in the 17

4th worst defence in the league currently (behind Wakey, cas and Leeds) hopefully smith sorts it out soon!

Late to the party, so apologies if its been mentioned, but I have always had my reservations about doing Catalans in a day. Early start, plenty of travel, a hard game to prepare for physically and mentally, and to then catch them on a day when they are red hot, it is always going to be a difficult ask.

Hard to judge a game by just listening on radio, but it sounds that they simply never got going. It's probably the grounding reality check we needed, and hopefully, in the long run, the game we look back later in the year and think 'yeah okay, we learned a lot from that game'.

Saturday is a big game now, both performance and result wise. Savelio has to come in for Lane for me, I think he has been poor, particularly in defence for nearly a year now. I actually think Scott has done well in the first three games, but if Carlos is back to full fitness i think we need him in to protect Mcintosh, otherwise that right edge will just become an easy target to teams. If mitchy is back id have him on the wing, a bigger and stronger right edge all round.