People keep making lame excuses.

We get thrashed at Warrington at the best of times

Even our great teams got beat at Hull KR

Even our great teams lost at Cas, it’s a derby.

Hull was close, it could have gone either way.

It was wet and windy, we had injuries.

It’s a process….blah blah blah. All this is in first 2 months of the season.

Why is Smith on a downward trajectory compared to last season despite apparently getting rid of some dead wood and bringing his own players in?

Remember in 2019- it’s a 5 year transition
2020- it’s a 5 year transition, starting from now
2021 - actually it starts now
2022 - no now.

Let me guess, Smith needs to clear out loads of dead wood and it’ll probably take a few years to get cooking? Yeah I thought.

Let’s just call it a 30-year transition and wait for another golden generation, if the game isn’t dead by then.

Smith had his hands tied regarding new signings for this year, and has tried to add some depth in key positions. I’m relatively happy with Sangare and McDonnell and MacDonald.

Yes there is more dead wood and I’ve posted before I’d not f about and I’d ring the changes. This could be done for next season as various contracts come to an end.

We now have O’Connor, Holroyd, Gannon, Walters starting to cement themselves as first grade players and Johnson, Simpson, Sinfield not too far behind so yes the prospects of a new home-grown generation look good.

There are a number of other good players coming through the academy. We had bad luck with Walker, and a few other young prospects haven’t developed as we wanted but I honestly feel we are only a FB and SO away from being a very decent side now.

Totally agree the club have spaffed 3-4 years on really poor signings and just got the rebuild completely wrong. However there are genuine reasons to be positive now - IF we can get rid of excess salary cap and invest it in the correct areas.

And why do you seem to dismiss the "excuses" and lay all the blame with Smith? Your anti Smith agenda is laughable

It's not just laughable it's sad that there is obviously so much pleasure taken in these rants. It's all about being seen to be right, rather than actually supporting the club or even the sport. To say anything remotely positive would not support this doomsday logic, so if we win it all goes quiet.

Pathetic

It wasn’t dominated, but we did concede ground too easily.

The spine is the main issue in terms of players, and Smith couldn't replace them last off-season. I'm fine with O'Connor/Johnson moving forward, but 1,6 and 7 are such key positions and even on paper its hard to argue Myler, Austin and Sezer are top 4 as a group. Huge decisions coming up for next year, but we won't/can't replace all three.

We do give up way too much ground each defensive set for my liking. Even in that supposed great second half v Cats we gave up huge yards right up the middle pretty much every set. A few times we made the first couple of tackles OK but then a regulation play would see them make 15 yards and get a quick PTB, leading to more easy yards. Although Smith doesn't seem too worried by this defensive softness I don't like it. RL's all about possession and position. Drop the ball a lot and you'll generally lose. Play in your own half a lot and ditto.

We do look like we have a lot of strike, and a willingness to move the ball around. When the weather clears up a bit we'll probably look a much better team more often. But we need a more solid Plan B for nights like Friday.

It's this kind of posting that causes bad blood from rival fans and quite childish.

Thought you looked really poor in the friendly at our place earlier this year. Don’t read much into them so took it with a pinch of salt, however don’t think you’ve looked great these opening 7 rounds either (second half catalan apart). As you showed last year, there’s still plenty of time to turn it around though. Must say as an outsider I really don’t like Rohan Smith. His chopping and changing on and off the field comes across arrogant as anything, and a lot of the time seems like he’s trying to be different for the sake of it. I’m sure with Mik coming back and Newman on the pitch you’ll pick up again though, however I do think you look a mid table side at best this year.

Think a bit of respect has to be paid to Rovers. Abdull has now played 4 games and 10 mins of Catalan before he went off injured, he’ll be on 12 MOS points after this week. Previous posts comparing our spines, I’d probably take Oledski, Newman, Smith and Martin from the Leeds team and that’s it. Maybe macdonald at a push. I think the weather played a big factor in the score line not being as big as it should have been. You could hardly make yards all night. Willie Peters is building something special at Rovers at the minute, but it continues to be going under the radar. I don’t mind it that way in fairness.

Won’t be under the radar much longer with your postings!

Good post mate. Agree with you.
I get that comparing players is completely subjective and pretty pointless.
But the point I was trying to make is about the difference in current performance level.
If we forget about the result/performance on Friday, forget current form and forget the last 7 games.
At the beginning of the season if we'd asked how many of that starting HKR 17 would I take in the Leeds starting 17.
For me it would have been 2 - Abdul and Coote.
You could probably make an argument for 3 or 4.
So my point is, and the problem is - Leeds are underperforming.
HKR are performing very well - and good luck to you!

You could make an argument for 17 based on Friday. But next week might be 2-3 if we pay well vs Hudds. That’s sport…..