Another season and we are not contenders and look like bottom 4 side, we cannot jeep saying next tear will be better as we have been saying that since 2018.knives starting to get drawn in Smith he’s under massive pressure now, but its just not working. Still some under performing deadwood in the side, but we are simply still not good enough and the results are not good enough. We could be in the same situation this time next year and then gave to get rid of Smith and then yet another rebuild.

To me its simple now, Smith changes his tactics and we make the playoffs or he has to go. Don’t like going down the knee jerk football route but coaches are judges on results and results are very poor. Anything less than 60% win ratio and play offs is the minimum, any less and we get someone in who can take us back in contention. We have to be ruthless the slow rebuild approach keeps failing, wigan, Saints, etc would not accept mediocrity

Smith for me is in the last chance saloon big time. We have a very good squad which is massively underperforming.
Tactics are amateur at best.Next three games are massive,if we lose all three.....well let's get Luke Gale back!!!

Does anyone know if crowd attendances are dropping off yet?

13000 tonight

That’s pretty healthy. Wonder how long the enthusiasm will remain……

I said a few weeks ago that we shouldn’t get rid of RS now, he has the whole season for me, but he has got to recognise that the style of play that he’s asking these players to play is so alien and they are incapable of producing winning performances consistently.

The style of play must be changed, and that’s on the coach. He’s not dropping the ball, but he is asking players or make very high risk plays that they simply are not capable of.

Not contenders, have I missed something is it September?

When you say that players aren't capable of playing the gameplan, do you mean they aren't capable of playing the style we had last year? If so that seems a bit odd.

Smith has made some mistakes. The pre season games being treated as though it was all a bit of a lark was definitely a mistake, as we just didn't hit the ground running. Faffing around with Gannon at halfback, others being tried in all sorts of roles and short kickoffs suggested everyone thought they could just pick up from where we left off last season, add in some new players and off we'd go.

The way forward for me starts with defence. Stop trying to 'contain' the other side and start thinking in terms of winning the field position. Until Smith fixes that I can't see much changing. Teams have worked out that we'll almost give them an early lead if they come out of the blocks fast. Give any team a 12-point lead and they'll fancy their chances.

The defence is part of our problem in attack, as we're losing the field position battle almost every game. Starting our sets deeper means having too many 'wasted' plays just to make back yards, or trying to put on attacking moves from deep, which is inherently risky and generally involves unstructured plays. Add the pressure of almost always being behind and its not hard to see why our attack is all over the place at times and individuals are making more errors than they should.

During the off-season there were plenty of us (including me) saying we'd be OK with mid table and some entertaining rugby. I'm not sure I feel that way now. I want us to do better than we are. Smith hasn't got his own team, especially in the spine, and until he gets that we won't know how good a coach he is. He won't (and shouldn't) get the boot, and next year will be the time to know whether he can lead us back to the top. Problem is he's burning through a lot of the goodwill from last year, and if things don't start to look more positive he won't be the first to discover that past efforts don't mean much in sport.

Will be interesting to see how we approach the cup, Smith’s first time in charge in that competition, we were outstanding in the playoffs last year we need to get back to that do or die attitude in the cup!

It is a long season and we could still get on a run. Personally I didn’t expect too much this year because we have so much salary cap committed to players who are either inconsistent or fringe.

This season is all about developing the youth and figuring out whether to retain some of the more marginal senior players. Honestly there are very few senior players who I think we would genuinely miss were they to go.

Maybe some had higher expectations this year but this playing squad still isn’t good enough yet. See what RS can do with some budget and then we can see.

For those saying it might be another rebuild year next year etc well yes it might be. I do think we are slowly heading in the right direction but my word we lost our way badly.

Do we have less intensity on the ball or without it?

Is there a game plan or does it change week by week? No style of play, no leadership on the field, passive defence. What does RS bring to the club. One way ticket back to Oz beckons by the end of the month.

rugby is a simple game. dominate your opponents in the forwards, good line speed, good kicking game and good discipline.
these are the basics. everything else comes after.
smith is trying to go against almost all that. he comes across as smug and arrogant. I personally have no faith in him whatsoever.

We've had 12k through post 2015 slump. It's a loyal fan base and I would imagine it will stay that way.

I agree with most of that but this seasons squad has improved on last year and yet we have gone backwards, so far at least. Smith did a great job when he took over last season but this year we look like a team of strangers.

Smith ain’t it. It’s a project we’ll end wasting seasons on. We shouldn’t be doing worse as smith has more recruitment and time. Last season was momentum and new coach bounce.

I have to say that other than Austin's suicidal drop out the errors last night were not the result of high risk rugby. Depressingly they were the result of players inability to hold the ball in contact and catch simple passes. Even more depressing is the fact that the senior players (Myler an exception) who are doing this. It was dire stuff last night, just as bad as anything we saw under Agar. I do worry that the off contract brigade may not react well to the enevitable and justified retention decisions that will be made over forthcoming weeks. I would hate to see a downing of tools similar to what occurred at Wire last year.

Nah, i think people have very short memories, some of the games st the beginning of last year were absolutely dreadful much worse than last night.

We were beaten by 3 trys to 2 by a very good Salford side people are talking as if we got 60 point nilling at home.

Good question, I think we have less with the ball, stood still receiving and hoping Newman or McDonald make something out of nothing.

"Heading in the right direction"?
Sorry Jim, but you're watching a different game to me.
I think we're going backwards. Every loss gets worse.

It’s the manner of the loss and the error ridden, low intensity stuff we’ve seen a lot of, we never gave ourselves a decent chance to win.

We are playing against the RL odds

Agree. Salford are a decent side this season.

For me this is all a process of elimination. Our pack has been awful for years; we have just about sorted it now although I’d be letting a couple of high earners go and replacing with a better fit.

The pack is generally young and should mature.

With a better platform set, that has exposed issues in the spine and clearly we need answers for 1, 6/7 and maybe 9 too.

I genuinely think RS can take the side forward given some freedom in recruitment - actually who we sign (and how long for) this season is absolutely critical bc it will set the tone for the next few seasons. Off field bigger than on this year.

The one thing Smith could fix from last year was the pack, and clearing out he’s done that which as you say has highlighted the things he needs to fix from this year.

I want us to be in the top positions this year but having said that Smiths brief was always a long term one.

Fans clamoured for youth to be given a go, well fine i agree but that strategy is not a quick fix

Have to disagree with your glass three quarters full assessment, Chris. Last night we failed to do very basic stuff. The slow and self inflicted start that we were meant to be sorting out was more sluggish than ever. The score really flattered us, and if Salford had Lafai and Sio available it would have been more. I'm not part of the "Rohan out brigade" by any means, but there is no point pretending last nights effort was anything other than poor. Also worth remembering that the dark days at the start of last season were partly mitigated by an awful injury crisis. Not so this season. Apart from a couple we are picking from strength. Depressing. I'll be there next week and hoping for a lot better.

Fixing the pack was absolutely the priority.
And he has done that.
On paper this pack should be a match for any in the league.
The problem is that in reality, they are not.

The debate is whether that is down to the quality of the players or the way they are being coached to play.
I really feel that the lack of line speed and intensity and the passive defence is letting the opposition pack dominate ours.