With the current depressing state of playing affairs, thought I'd try and generate some hope. I hear sky of people on here saying we need patience and a new set of very special players are coming through.
I have to say I've not seen any of the young players loom that special, and our young fullback is perhaps not as good as we were hoping either.
Is this hope on the youngsters rise tinted, or are we genuinely looking at some players who will be world class?
Also out of interest, what would our team look like if some of these players were thrown in now with let's say,
Walker, ward, Ava, Prior, Gale, Leeming, Martin retaining a place?

Weve played 1 game.

To me we appear to be going through a very similar period as Wigan did when their legends moved on. It took them several years and a lot of stress and poor to average performances to work their way back up. I think it’ll take us just as long, if not longer as the league is more competitive than back then too.

I think we have a lot of promising young players, but at the moment they’re nothing more than that. That’s not a criticism, just we as fans often get far too carried away with a few decent academy performances and then expect miracles from them in the first team.

Walker for instance. Clearly a potential top player but has limitations to his game at the moment. Was at least partially at fault for one of Hull’s tries. Again, I’m not overly criticising him, just pointing out that we treat him like an established pro even though he’s what? 19? In the NRL he’d likely be playing a couple of years in their feeder clubs before graduating to the first team at an older age. We expect a fully formed full back at a younger age.

For me we have to readjust our expectations for a few years and realise we’re a mid table team. If we’re comfortably avoiding the relegation battle this year then that’s an improvement on last. Then we should look to maintain mid-table or bottom end of playoffs. Get a couple of seasons of playoffs and then look to move up to top 2/3.

We’re talking 5 years plus in my opinion and the threat of relegation should not be underestimated when people bemoan some of our recent signings etc

It was disappointing on Sunday but yes,it’s one game and it’s not how you start a season it’s the finish that counts?
Grasping at straws ?lol

Wow, great post. Given me some much needed perspective!

When too many senior players are average, a youngster has to be mega special to make any impact. Any less and they become a project which at times will prove to be a liability.

Tricky business, balancing a squad. If you can't sign players of the right quality in the positions you need them most you're often looking at 2 or more years before you get another proper stab at it.

Which could and should be easily avoided with the right recruitment & right Coaching set up in place.

All this 'its only one game' stuff is rubbish for me.

It's not one game, it's multiple seasons of the same issues, and that's what gets my goat.

Agree Fallon. That's why it's so depressing!

In the clubs history how many sustained successful eras has there been ? I would say 3 . 30s mid 60s early 70s and first 15 years of this century. Yes the club won things in other decades ,but talking about periods of sustained glory by great Leeds teams . It comes round once in awhile its not guaranteed. We all said not so many years ago ' let's enjoy this because it wont last forever '

I get not winning things, but this club should be challenging every year, given the resources it has. Relegation scraps and poor entertainment value is unacceptable imho

Agreed. It could be excused if we had not been in a relegation scrap last year.. and the year before

Couldn't agree more. We are a huge club and should be challenging every season.

The main problem the club has is that its got itself in a hole, and once that happens it's very hard to dig yourself out.
There are no magic signings and fixes here which will make us great again, given salary cap constraints etc.
I would point the finger at the lost generation of home-grown talent here. Sutcliffe and Handley don't set the pulse going, and really aside from Ward who have we produced in recent times?
All the younger ones like Walker, Newman, Oledski, Smith etc clearly need more development time before they're fully contributing members of a successful SL side.
I am personally pretty confident that we have a handful of future England internationals coming through, but be prepared to wait another 2-3 years before the side has the right balances to be successful again.

I think it could have been mitigated but would have been incredibly difficult to avoid altogether.

Getting the right recruitment and right coaching setup is very easy to say and much, much harder to do.

All the periods of success was based around the times of promoting the youth. Something we really need to learn from.

Yes that's True

Yes but you promote the youth around quality players, thats quality players. You back them and accept for a period it is learning from these quality players. Us promoting right now might not help anyone, because we are chockerblocked with poop around them.

You promote with people like Gale, Ward, Prior, and Ava. But that is all we have of the experienced quality. You need three or four more of that quality, to compliment the youngsters, then back that. But even then they needed coaching by the right team.

I could not agree more. Promoting youth is great but it needs to be a careful balance of youth and experience. The Youth do appear eager and full of promise and the partnership arrangement with Featherstone will have benefits. BUT the experience is not convincing to me. Yes, Gale in the halves, Ward (when hes fit) in the pack, Prior yes (but is he a leader?) time will tell! Ava is a solid big front rower - but so many seem to be over hyping his qualities after his absence last Sunday. Some observers are maybe seeing something I have missed but I rate him as average ...... no more! Maybe the key will be bedding in the 2 newbies from Huddersfield (Mellor & Leeming) when fully fit and playing them the full 80 minutes. That provides opportunities to rotate the props which is essential if we rely on youth until another BIG signing. Whoever we buy, we do need not just big - go forward, but someone with leadership qualities too. Someone who talks and motives on the pitch. It will not be easy to find the right candidate ...... who we can afford. Going back to the coaching issue which many have raised I do think we need an attacking focused coach to work in the group. Who is doing it now?

Hello all.
With walker, newman,handley,oledski,holroyd and McClelland and johnstone in or around the first team this year I dont think we are doing too badly. A couple more top quality experienced players who will lead by example is what these lads need to play and train with.

I think Peter Smith said a couple of months back that Leeds have the best crop of youngsters since the class of McGuire Jjb Burrow Sinfield etc. The problem for us is weve a bang average coach and too many average first team players which is causing us issues in blooding the young players due to the fact that we have been in a relegation battle 3 from last 4 seasons

Maybe it will all turn out like the famous words of Kevin Sinfield.
'we had our bottoms spanked last week, but we'll get thur'
Anyone know when this was said?

I worry about the clubs ability to transition the young prospects into the team. There's not a lot of experience behind the scenes and appears to be some reluctance to put them in to cover injuries etc. The youngsters need to see a route or we're at risk of losing them. I'm hearing that one of them has already decided to leave the sport

Huddersfield are always in and around the basement and throw youngsters in.

Well if we keep playing the same players that have lead us to 3 relegation battles in 4 years things wont improve. The kids have to come through. The club can keep talking about it but if they dont have to bottle to give the kids a chance they will never come thru.