This guy is no better than Richard Agar and we are stuck with him for 4 years. It looks as though he has lost the dressing room already. At least JJB got the players playing for him but he wasn't given a fighting chance.

Lost the dressing room? Okaaay

I think so, I dont think alot of the players give a s**t. I'd like to be proved wrong but I don't see any real progress

What was wrong with Furner

Wibble.

This year is going to be tough to the end. We keep asking for the squad to be upgraded and some of our weaker players to leave. That's happening, and there are going to be some noses out of joint. Also quite possible that the likes of Tetevano want out regardless. So its not going to be the happiest of places this year. JJB's 'up and at 'em' approach worked a bit but is no way to run a team long term.

The Warrington, Huddersfield and Sts games have told us quite a lot. Namely that Smith can get our attack functioning far better than Agar, that our front row is utterly garbage which means we can't compete with the best in SL, and that Smith has already marked some cards for exit.

You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Smith needs to be given a chance to fix the hopelessly imbalanced squad he's inherited. Under a salary cap it will take until at least 2024 before the majority of the squad is his choice.

I wish we were closer to Sts than we are, but at least we know that our squad almost at full strength is no match for Sts even when they are missing a few players.

Excellent post OWL. This is what you get when you neglect the cleaning for so many years, you can’t see the floor for clothes and dust…

Good post. Well said

Given we will now be down to 2 props, one of which is the ailing Prior it’s hard to see a win v Hull and Cas in the next 2.
Toulouse away becomes potentially a very big game.
Toulouse have KR at home and Wakey away before playing us. They have Salford and FC at home after us, we will be losing at home to Wigan and away at Catalan.

We could be 11th at end of July and if, big IF Toulouse pick up form , looking over our shoulder at the drop . At best I reckon we will be 10th.

Although Smith needs to plan for next year, he also needs some results. He won’t get much of a honeymoon spell.

On a separate point, I could not see JJB last night

I'd agree on the worry about props but losing Tetevano is neither here nor there, Donaldson is adequate like for like cover.

JJB was there.

That’s almost doing Donaldson a disservice at this point…

The positive with the lack of props is that Walters is getting game time.
Smith clearly sees him as a prop - and he has the size.
Just needs to add some aggression - but game time will help with that.

And if we can get Sangare early, then Tetevano really is no loss.

To be honest wether we get Sangare or not Tetavano is no loss!

Whether we like it or not, he is a loss. Every time he's been available for selection he's been picked. Simple as that. Until the club gets a grip in terms of recruitment and retention (and I hope that includes his exit) that will be the case. We have no depth at all at prop. It's the most damning indictment of Agar's tenure.

GH and Agar badly miscalculated on the CV-19 topic. Without scrums they thought that smaller more mobile and athletic forwards could carry us forwards. As soon as we returned to “regular” rugby, that (poor) idea was dead in the water, and no we are paying the price.

He will be moving upstairs in the future.

Totally agree.

I'm lost on how scrums made any difference to their decision making, they're non contested and the brief rest to pack a scrum shouldn't have influenced recruitment either? And I don't really see us having a more mobile and athletic pack, just a small one.

I meant they thought there would be a change in emphasis of forwards I suppose, rather than just scrums per se. I think the costs were also attractive to Gary, and Rich thought he could do something with smaller forwards. They got it wrong and we’re paying for it.

It was coupled with the introduction of the 6 again wasnt it so the now incorrect logic was that the game was going to get too quick for the bigger forwards.

I Dont lay the blame on Smith at present

You can see the coaching ideas, but the players are just not delivering, it looked a clear plan to put last tackle plays high to Fusitua over Grace, but the execution of those kicks, mostly from Austin, was absolute garbage.

The structure in defence looks pretty good, but the contact on the hit is pathetic at times, Hurrells second was an embarrassment.

Imo this team arnt ready to beat a team like Saints, we havnt got enough strong minds in the group, Leeming isnt a captain in a million years for a start and our pack look like they're terrified of Walmsley every time we play them, id be amazed if he's ran for more meters against any other team than us over the last 2 years.

Im confident Smiths the right man, but its going to take some time to clear out the sh*te and change some mindsets, which he's apparently exceptional at doing.

Not sure how anyone can blame Smith. Its not his fault the squad is hopelessly imbalanced and that a number of our players just aren't that good. We've lost another year by going with Agar again. Improvement this year will be good, but its from next year, after a full off-season under Smith and with a few players he wants added that we can start to really see if he's the man to take us back to challenging again.

I'm sure if Smith feels Leeming isn't Captain material then he'll change it.The players obviously felt he was as they voted for him.None of us know whether he's material as we are not prevy to what goes on in training and the dressing room.

This group of players voting for somthing is hardly a seal of approval and we'r hardly overflowing with candidates, is he the best option from a bunch of poor options...Very possibly.

We dont need to be prevy to everything to form an opinion, if we did, we'd have nothing to discuss on here. Its not critical that our opinion is correct so we can put it out there regardless of how informed we are.

Maybe i should of put imo next to the statement, but i thought that was just taken for granted.

But from everything i see and hear from him, he isnt a captain in a million years, good player, not a captain...IMO