I thought we did some of the basics much better in the 1st half, than we have done most of the season. We had the better of the field position, without looking too threatening will the ball.
The 2nd half was a different story. Huddersfield were well into our half with the 1st set from the kick off and our 1st set finished with McDonnell kicking on the last from in our half. That set the tone for the half.
While we have been poor most of the season our defence has been pretty solid, but these last few weeks even that has capitulated.

We’re just constantly losing our composure under pressure.

We were flattering to deceive today - The Snake missed three kicks and the two tries we scored early second half were soft. First half was pretty good, but we let them come at us second half and had no real answer.

If I’m being kind I could say we didn’t have any backs on the bench so losing our 2 and 3 was a big deal.

I mean Catalans got wiped by this crew at their place last week and we did better, but we handled the injuries poorly I thought.

We have no mental fortitude, and the reason for that is the culture running through the playing side of the club accepts mistakes far too easily. That stems from the CEO and the Coach and manifests in the playing groups. Until that changes we will continue to have the occasional good performance surrounded by mediocrity and a few humpings by the better teams.

-Weak minded mentality continues

- Fusitu'a should call it quits his body just can't cope with the demand of rugby (Newman isn't far behind him in that respect)

- Mcdonnell can't cover centre although couldn't really be helped with the injuries tonight

-Miller is very rocks and diamonds can produce a bit of magic but tries to do it too often should have just found the deck when returning the ball instead of trying to jink past 3 Huddersfield chasers. To then go for a short drop out with the scores at 24-24 with 5 mins left is a complete brain explosion and sums up the current mentality of this Leeds team.

-Some good pieces of play tonight completely undone by terrible defensive efforts and reads and poor game management the cons far outweigh the cons.

-Kendall is still as shocking as ever with his decisions ridiculous at times.

-Anything but 2 wins from the next 2 and Rohan is surley gone.

Literally losing interest more and more each week in a club I love and will always support through thick and thin but just sick of same old story now for far too long.

The only player that made any impact for us was Martin. Without him we have no attacking plays whatsoever

The game management at times is just amateurish. 2 minutes to half time, we try throwing a few silly passes and give the ball back on half way, which resulted in them kicking a penalty.
McDonnell having to kick on the last tackle of the first set of the half.
Miller almost knocked the wall down to give them a 7 tackle set just after O'Connor's try, which totally gave the momentum back to Huddersfield.
And finally, the drop out from hell.

We are a joke of a team. The only player on the field tonight that made any significant impact was Martin, but when he made the breaks he had nobody backing him up. Our defence was woeful and we never built any pressure. We did not deserve to win the game and were very lucky to be in with a chance on 70mins. To make the evenig worse it was freezing

Four home defeats on the bounce, and a different but in some ways worse performance than against Wire. Its like we trade one weakness for another, and underlying problems just aren't getting fixed as they creep back far too often.

If one thing sums up how stuttering we are, its that we're nine games into the season and Croft and Frawley have scored just one try between them. That is the result of a whole host of issues with the way we've been playing, and is almost the same as Austin/Sezer at the same stage last year (a whole one try more...). Aside from the initial run in 2022 under Smith, our halfbacks have looked awful in the majority of games. It really is beginning to look like the issue in some cases isn't the players.....

A couple of posters who have scoffed at criticism of smith and team performances are noticeable by their absence...

I get they want to avoid negativity but if the team were performing now any critics would be called out for their absence.

just said the same on another thread

listening to smiths interview hes starting to really panic and that shows, previously hes not overly leant on decisions going our way but hes grasping at that now too.

Good first half, everything we wanted to see.

Those early tries in the second half seemed to destroy our confidence and momentum but thought we did well to get 12 points ahead again, when we weren’t playing great.

Masters destroyed our right edge, thought he had a great game.

We really need to show more resilience, and cut out the dumb plays

This has been said for too long now, the problem starts with smith and clearly these repeated issues arent changing anytime soon.

I'll be honest the first half was decent and steady and again we made some good breaks but yet again the fundamentals of attacking in good ball were 'clunky' and some of the last tackle plays still really poor, Frawley in particular continues to prove doubters right with his performances.

Fully agree Bats. There’s a lack of quality leadership on the field too. We don’t have many players who stand up and be counted, when the going gets tough they capitulate

He looked like he knew he’s under big pressure now

We had the opportunity for a drop goal when 12 points up prior to the Miller kick on the last, didn't seem to enter anyone's mind.

To concede that number of try’s at home is scandalous. The Swift one from 3 yards out past 2 defenders was an absolute shocker. First half we played reasonably well, picked up the giants running lines and tackled them, then punched holes in the giants defence. Croft showed some decent form, then second half we collapsed. Not certain about the Newman injury, seems a bit strange if he was injured why not replace him at half time.
As for fus, feel desperately sorry for the lad . On the field leadership woeful, Smith shows no signs of inspiring the team . Doesn’t seem much team spirit either. As I have stated on many occasions this team is deeply flawed, most of it unfortunately can be attributed to the coach and some of his signings.

I rather foolishly looked on BBC Sport app hoping for a "Rohan leaves Leeds" type headline.... alas... no!

I generally try an be positive.

For the first 4 games or so I thought we’d turned a corner in terms of defensive resilience and was just Waiting for the offense to click, plus Handley was on the end of some good stuff.

I wasn’t overly bothered by the first saints game, I thought we were competitive. But then for me we’ve got worse. Out of all our losses, last nights was the worst because I know we’ve talked a lot about only turning up for a half, but yesterday it was so stark.

I said the same thing last year when we were 6 points in front of Hull KR . In front of there posts with one and a half minutes to half time I'm screaming for a drop goal but instead our great team hand the ball over and KR go the length to score. At least a drop goal eats a bit of clock time up . There is no one in the team with a rugby brain.

I wish

That was Foolish , Gary says we are in a good place .

He was right about the tackle leading to the drop out, tackle was complete then a second man comes in and the lift and drag him and the last try was a clear knock on, but we put ourselves in those positions, 6 trys in second half and they scored 3 on the bounce without us having the ball.

Smith looks broken, hope he walks before having to push him, either way think almost everyone now thinks he’s not the man for the job.

We have to replace him whilst we can salvage the season not wait until its mathematically not possible to make the play offs, because if he stays we won’t.

Having been at the game and watched Rohan’s post match thoughts. I thought his description of what happened was pretty accurate. But, the point surely is that though this demonstrates his skill in reading a game, he is actually employed as the coach not as a Rugby League analyst. So, fans are naturally left wondering about how he can’t translate his knowledge of the game into improving the performance of the team - particularly during games.
It is accurate to say that the collapse coincided with Fusitua and Newman leaving the field, and though Martin is an experienced replacement as a back, McDonnell was brutally exposed by Swift on our right hand side. But some of those tries in the second half were terrible to concede.
What Leeds did well in the first half was to keep possession and not engage in daft offloads, and just focus on field possession. This wasn’t exciting but for most of the first half seemed effective. Once the game started to swing back and forth in the second half, Leeds went into giddy mode (when they had the ball) and they started to doubt that they could win out by re-focussing on possession.
A bitter defeat like that is not necessarily a fair place to be drawing broader conclusions, but there are some weaknesses that go back to Rohan’s approach to roster management. Part of his approach is to pick up fringe players from other teams and hope he can improve them. And as usual with any coach in any sport he shows loyalty and support when fans may not feel it’s justified - e.g. Fusitua was having a decent game, but he is very injury prone and fans did question the sense of earmarking a significant part of the cap on a part timer.
And there is also the debate about the balance of accountability between the coach and the players, when things go wrong as spectacularly as they did last night. The startling piece of evidence we have is that Rohan firmly distanced himself from the bonkers idea of the short kick off by Miller near the end (never mind it’s comedic execution). So, why are supposedly experienced players making repeated daft decisions - the answer has to be that this makes the coach look weak, and perhaps unable to stand up to senior players.

he started out as an analyst. he should go back to it