They're rumours they are talking about bringing in the Video Ref at all games. I'd much rather they bring in an extra official to control the ruck. Might be a great way to build young refs experience and confidence. In fairness they could bin the Video ref entirely for me. I much prefer games without it.

Some cracking posts on this thread, and agree with a lot that’s been said. We’ve definitely lost our cutting edge with regards to coaching appointments and recruitment.

Recruitment in particular has been pretty woeful in recent seasons and teams like saints have consistently got it right along with having great homegrown spine players and bringing in very good head coaches which is why they’ve had so much success. It’s going to take some time to get it right at Leeds but I think a lot of fans are fatigued over the last 7 years or so with the really poor on the field performance. That’s been far too long a period and Hetherington has to take a lot of the blame for that. I’d also be interested to see how much money Caddick has pumped in, he’s a very wealthy man indeed.. we shouldn’t be struggling financially.

It’ll come back the success I’m sure, we’ve definitely made strides with youth development but we shouldn’t be losing likes of Walters. It’s happening too often in recent years, we very very rarely lost good young players in our pomp years and I think that’s due to our lack of success on the field

I definitely think the ambition of the club is different to the likes of Saints, Wigan, Wire and Cats.
They all want to finish top.
You can see that in the way they recruit.
They know where their gaps are and act early. They have a plan.
OK, it doesn't work at Wire, but you can't fault the ambition.
Look at how Wigan are recruiting for next year.
And look at how quickly Saints have acted with Clark and Mbye at 9.
Our recruitment in contrast always seems desperate and last minute.
Our ambition these days is to scrape into the top 6.
The club see that as appeasing fans.
And maybe we can scrape a win or tow in the play-offs.
That would be success - and would keep up ticket sales.
Unfortunately the corporate side is more important than trophies.

For me, it books down to two things. We took our eye off the ball with the junior setup. We have produced some ok players in that period, but no real established internationals in that period. Looking at the England vs team, we don't really have anyone regularly in there.
Secondly, our transition from the golden generation was woeful, and we've been on the backfoot ever since, and our signings have been generally poor.

Without the solid base of great youngsters coming through, more emphasis has been on signings, and we havent been able to get played of the right calibre to come and stay to help build a team around

Another brief mitigating factor has been injuries: right back to Ward who had to retire early (was a cracking player), Jack Walker was looking a real prospect at FB and then we’ve had other key players like Newman injured for long periods. All clubs get this but ai do think it’s effected Leeds.

One wonders how well the club managed some of those injuries.

Walker was thrown in early as a teenager and made an impact. But I wonder if he had been introduced a bit more slowly (Gannon-style) then the toil on his body could have been reduced.

Stevie Ward's issues with concussion sound horrific. Another player who seemed a bit too small for the position he was played in. It always baffled me why Ward wasn't brought through as a stand-off, which would have protected him from a lot of the collisions he was routinely subjected to. Imagine if we had the option of Ward as a half - it couldn't be any worse than Cameron Smith, who has the skills but not the speed of awareness or body to make the most of them.

Jury is still out on whether we can get on top of Newman's recurrent injury woes. I wonder if playing him at full-back might get the best out of him, and perhaps create fewer opportunities for him to have to suddenly put the foot on the gas which seems to come with extra risk of hamstring aggravations (???).

Another player with injury issues we didn't get the most out of was Kallum Watkins. With a bit more foresight we could have kept him as a useful squad player, even if he had lost confidence at centre.

all clubs have injuries. that's not a valid excuse imo

All teams have them. But we do seem to have been disproportionately hit when it comes to our best young players. No idea why. Some of it is luck, but it certainly hasn’t helped.

Not entirely linked but interesting that Warrington have recalled Riley Dean now that Powell has gone.

If we are saying injuries are to blame for our current woes then lack of quality in the squad to cover is also a factor, is the club actively doing it's best to rectify these issues?

I don’t think anyone’s saying it’s to blame, just that it’s a contributing factor.

To your other point, I think the signings of Mcdonell, Roberts, Hooley, Olpherts and Ruan were made with that in mind. Didn’t Smith last year say he was shocked that he was 1/2 injuries from throwing 17 year olds in. I’d say that’s been rectified. Granted Olpherts (and maybe Hooley) don’t look to have worked out but the other three are/look like they could be handy squad players at a minimum.

Some really interesting points - with a club of our size and financial muscle we shouldn't be struggling as we are. Is there some deeper undercurrent in the culture of the club that is holding back progress. We now the over reliance on the golden generation was an issue - thankfully this has passed. Having heard rumours as to how the club treated certain players plus the treatment of Furner is Leeds considered a toxic environment that stops the recruitment of the best youngsters and overseas players?

Listening to a part of a podcast Blake Austin was on that was posted on Twitter today seems like GH might be part of the problem?

Was talking about the NZ game after the Grand Final last year and despite 10 players been away on the after the GF for several days they were all told that they had to play the NZ World Cup friendly and if they didn’t they would be in breach of contract. Was saying Martin asked GH if he could withdraw on basis that if he he got injured in a friendly he’d miss representing PNG at the World Cup but was told he had to play

That’s if he’s not embellishing things a little, I don’t think he’s doing his contract negotiations any good, don’t think current players should be slagging off the club like that in my opinion.

The NZ game was announced in may, Austin makes it sound like it was planned within a week.

I honestly thought the NZ game was pointless from the day it was announced, but as you say the players knew the score. Austin is making himself look like a bit of stirrer, which is a shame. Don't see what either the club or the player has to gain from his staying at this point.

In the golden era and even a little after of McGuire, Burrow, Sinfield, Webb, Diskin, Mathers, Ablett, etc etc... there was definitely a desire with the players unlike what we have now, whether the players are content with their levels or just can't be bothered trying that extra 5% (or more), I don't know, but even the atmosphere has changed from crackling to somewhat subdued almost, largely down to the performances on the pitch but we, the fans were the 18th man by all accounts.

Eras, personnel, even prices of tickets have a bearing I feel.

Chris - whether Austin's behaviour is appropriate or not - I personally think it should be kept behind closed doors it does suggest the club could handle these matters in a more professional manner. No doubt his new offer will be significantly lower the player will be disgruntled and his agent here SMTM, will be looking at ways to increase that. Craig and Gary seem to have a challenging relationship - a clash of egos?

If the rumours around Tetevano and Ward and the lack of proper insurance suggests the welfare of the players is a pretty low priority to the club especially the youngsters who the club don't/won't insure. This may well explain why Leeds can't attract the quality of player a club of this size should?

Could it be the golden generation had a loyalty to each other rather than the club - who despite all the money they made on the back of their success weren't prepared to pay them in line with other top players.

Danny McGuire despite everything he did for the club was told he wasn't wanted yet played a further two years at Hull KR.

Does this sound like a player centric club?

Completely agree - his position is untenable now - the NZ game was just a money making exercise and it again shows where the priorities are in the club and it isn't player welfare.

They're all assumptions though that are made to come to a conclusion.

The club has said they have looked after Tetevano and he himself has thanked them for their support, and funnily enough where did the rumour come from - Blake Austin.

What's the Ward rumour Ive not heard anything about insurance with Ward?

McGuire was offered a one year extension with a view to moving 'upstairs' afterwards, but wanted two and Hull KR offered him silly money so he went.

I'm sure Craig Harrison and GH do clash they both want what's best for their own interests, however I have heard say that there isn't a club in the country that look after the younger payers better than Leeds.

As a Warrington fan i've been reading this thread with interest. Some very good posts and i can see where the original poster is coming from. I feel we are in a similar boat to you guys. Constantly rebuilding. Although we never had the success you did. Now we have this air of desperation about us sacking Powell and finding a new coach.
In terms of Leeds. I've noticed over the last few years you are content with throwing money at players around your nearest rivals that have had maybe 1/2 good seasons in total. The likes of Sezer, Olpherts, Gale etc getting a bigger contract with a bigger club and the expectation is quite high. With many of these they haven't performed and could be described as failures in some quarters. I definitely think recruitment has been poor like Warrington. Like others have said, Saints seem to have success with imports such as Paasi, Sironen, Mata'utia, Coote etc. I think if you ask any player coming from the NRL who would they want to sign for to win trophies - there is only really one team - Saints. and it galls me to say it. Maybe that is the unique draw they have. Maybe some players just dont want to come to other teams these days.

I've always seen a lack of ambition from Leeds Rhinos, and Rugby League in general, I imagine it looks good from the owners point of view to keep things ticking over and play it safe but a few years ago I found I wasn't getting value for money so stopped going to the games and buying the shirts etc.

We used to have "Britain's best supported rugby club", I appreciate that was a bit of a fudged claim, but that was before a sustained period of success, the crowds didn't grow during that period, and it is all fine because the real money is in corporate sales, but why not have both? Leeds should have got to the point where sell outs were regular occurrences, but they made the ground smaller and just bumped up the prices. Selling five shirts to one person is seen as preferable to selling one shirt to five different people.

We used to have a world class team, with England, NZ and even Aussie internationals, but we let them go without replacing them. At first the promise was made that we wouldn't do that, and that probably sold enough season tickets, then we stopped promising and the sales didn't go down too much, then we let more players go, and sent out a video/email asking for faith in the youth system, and that meant enough money was coming in to maintain a weak squad, its all followed the same pattern, do the bare minimum to keep the business running, but sporting ambition is a distant second.

We should be putting more on the pitch, better entertainment, higher quality signings wtc. Obviously the salary cap limits the sport, but what I have seen GH/Leeds lobbied for no increases in the cap, I'm sure it makes sense from a certain point of view, but for me Leeds should be driving for bigger and better, not plodding along near the back of an increasingly slow race.

The constant reliance on loyalty branding is clever when it works because you can ask someone to stick with you even when you aren't doing well, which means that poor performance isn't punished by the bottom line. But I know they could do much better with the money, so they don't get any of mine until they can show they are making a better effort.

A very honest post and there will be a good number of people with the same view im getting that way,if Gannon gets picked at six or Handley at one im going to abstain until the club decide to get serious.

I honestly don’t know how the modern RL player manages to get himself out of bed, walk down the stairs and make breakfast, then drive to training if he can’t can’t stand up and put his foot on something the size of a rugby ball. Along with 20 to 30 forward passes a game it’s something the RFL have chosen to ignore like it’s just not happening. And there we have have the death of the game for a growing number of people.

Downward spiral springs to mind.

In answer to the original question, Cade Cust would go down as a marker for our ambition.

If the answer is Cade Cust, I’m not sure I fully understand the question…