Its an absolute disgrace he's not been given a chance in our second row imo

In what way was he one of our best Frosties? Just because he made 41 tackles? He didn’t break the line once, and offered zero threat.

Smith was dropped after been the top tackler against Wakey, despite playing stand off. How many halfs make that many tackles? Sure he missed some, although not as many as Sutcliffe as previously done. And he still managed to threaten the line with five tackle busts. But of course he got dropped.

Here’s my take on the Sutcliffe / Smith situation. I think all at the club know that Smith will make the grade as a back rower, and they are giving him playing time in that position just not at Leeds at the moment.

As Furner has a ‘free hit’ for the first half of the season, he’s trying Sutcliffe out to see if he could make the other back row slot. He doesn’t feel confident in playing them both together due to a lack of experience. Once Sutcliffe has played a dozen or so games there, Furner will know if he can truly cut it in a new position and will make the call.

Smith will be one of the back towers for Leeds for many years to come.

I fear we'r goin to end up losing Smith, he must be getting fed up. We'v got the worst second row combo in the League, a lad Hull KR got rid of on the bench, who offers decent defence but nothing else and Ablett, Ward and JJB injured...And Smith still cant get a look in, despite offering more than most of them. Furners shout for more experience after the Hull game dosnt bode well for him either...Hearing he's doin well for Fevs good news, but dont think its goin to help his chances unfortunately. Cant for the life of me see what Furners thinking with our backrow.

Hope your right, id rather use the free hit to get the youger, better player superleague experience but could live with what your saying.

Agree.
Imo we all knew it was a big rebuild & i was thinking 12/18mths but at this rate i think 3yrs+ with this approach to recruitment & retention.
Its time players were facing consequences for poor performances & i mean ALL of them.
Of course i an see why DF would stick with Tui at 6 given its a brand new partnership with Myler. But that pack is pathetic & at the very least Trout (now on loan) C.Smith Johnson & Holroyd should be getting minutes in their respective positions.
Powell ripped a squad apart & rebuilt from the ground up whilst signing quality pros & blooding our better youngsters that type of cull needs to happen again.
Whilst its great to get 2 Marquee players when you still need rid of 10 or so has beens or never will bees it will make very little difference.

Am I right in saying Golding played second row for Fev yesterday?
Seems a strange one.
Gotcha did he do anything in the pack?

thought he played full back?

That's bbc team line ups, they're all over the place usually.

He didn't play second row. Actually played fullback, and had a decent game. However, from the games I have seen of Fev, I would say Turner is a better fullback, who moved to wing yesterday.

I think Tui could be a good player if he lost 3 stone. I'd look at taking him out of the team for 6-8 weeks with the sole intention of losing as much weight in that period as he possibly can then introduce him back in when he should be fit enough to make his tackles and not make 3 other players attempt to cover for him.

Or take Myler out of team, and move Tui to defend on the left edge instead.

I think I saw more from Tui playing against Wakey at 1 than we have in all his other games combined. His footwork could potentially do some damage on kick returns too. Granted he'll be caught after about 15 metres but still...

a full back who can't tackle...

Thought Golding was going to be the new Sutcliffe when I saw the line ups


Do we think Lolohea is the problem at HB or Myler or both?
Could Johnson play in the halves alongside Tui ?

It says a lot about his performances that after 6 games the player signed to solve our problems at half back, is either been moved to fullback, dropped or moved from his defensive position because he can't tackle. Shambles.

We needed an organising half not a maverick.

Wasn't Lolohea signed long before the full scale of these problems became apparent? AFAIK he was Brian Mac's replacement for Moon, a very different type of player. Like Moon, he has some good things to offer on attack, but not necessarily what we need the most in a stand-off.

If Myler could do the organising (granted, he's not shown much evidence of this yet) and Tui worked on his defence (this should be fixable at least) we'd be okay IMO. I'd also like to see a bit more running threat from Lolohea.

Myler is the weaker link IMO. He's had longer to fit into the side, is a more experienced player, but aside from a few glimpses when the team has its tails up he's not really the kind of scrum half we need.

We needed a Widdop or a Blake Green. We didnt' go for it. So we should have replaced Myler with Hastings. I suspect either of those strategy's would have have people singing a different line now.

Agreed

As someone rightly said on either here or the Wire board, Myler looks great when you win by 40 and scores a hat trick. When you need a half to drag you through he's not your man.

Myler has never shown he can be a good organising half back when i have seen him. I don't see that changing now.

Expect the Sleeve to be trying to get Lilley back from us!

Hey don`t say that Bullseye even though you are on a wind up. But I asked several months ago what does Myler offer that Lilley couldn`t give apart from him costing more on the cap.
I`m a fan of both Lilley and Golding but more knowledgeable on here don`t agree and I`m happy to concede on that.
Hastings would have been a great signing even with Lolohea alongside him.
We still need a couple of props and a sort of Sevalio type player that Hull have just signed.