To get back to the thread title......lose on Thursday, and I expect Mr Smith to be running around with his underpants on his head, shouting "DON'T PANIC, DON'T PANIC, WE'VE LOST FIVE GAMES, DON'T PANIC" a la Corporal Jones in Dad's Army.

Forgive me for repeating myself (I've mentioned this, once or twice, before), but we've been sleepwalking into this, since 2011. Yes, that's SEVEN seasons ago. The season we've played the most entertaining rugby I've seen.

Surely it wasn't just me, that could see an ex NRL prop in his early 30's, with a serious eye problem that forced him out for months, was very near the end of his career. Smith kept him for another 2 seasons.

Surely it wasn't just me, that could see a half back, who had a penchant for picking up leg muscle injuries, keeping him out for 2-3-4 weeks at a time. FFS, if it wasn't for a specialist advising him to retire at the end of 2014 with a different injury, Smith would still be playing him now.

Surely it wasn't just me, who could see other 30+ year old players that we're nearing the end, but Smith simply stuck his head on the sand, and ignored the march of time on these players.

Don't get me wrong, these players are club legends, but there comes a time when you have to be ruthless. We should have acted sooner. There's no room in sentiment in sport. See Ferguson in football. If he sees a player has outgrown his usefulness.... out he goes.

We're seeing the same with Westwood, now. The fella was gone, two or three years ago. But we're treating him like the 15 year old family dog. Too sentimental to see his suffering.

Smith's recruitment stinks. His approach is scattergun, with the "just throw some money at it" with players at the top end of the market, and "make do and mend" from your bargain basement, ooops shelf at Asda, player.

I agree with many on here. Wane's got him at arm's length, patting him on the head, when they beat us in important games. He's easily got the measure of Smith.

As I said, sleepwalking for years. Let's not kid ourselves. 2 finals and a LLS, in the worse SL season ever, in terms of quality, simply papered over the cracks.

Oh, and if he suddenly decides to pull his finger out, and turn this debacle around, perhaps he could tell that fraud Stuart fluffing Pearce to sling his fluffing hook, and never darken our door again.A man who's most famous for missing a penalty, and being an all round loser, is asked to give motivational speeches before cup finals.......only at Warrington, eh?

I had to stop myself from standing up and clapping after reading this!

Go on, stand and clap.

You know you want to.

Yeah, except unfortunately for you, leeds have 6 points on the board, you have no points.

And the award for stating the bleeding obvious goes to.....

Not yet as we are only 2 wins off top 8,

I'd say yes if we are bottom two after 15 games

Less than that....
If we are bottom and pointless after 12 rounds. It's out of our hands and well be reliant on teams dropping points. That leaves us only 8 games to get at least one win to avoid doom.

Leeds had Segeyaro to pull them out of the fertilizer last year .I don't know about suing him they should be paying him a bonus .

We have scored some good tries this season but the main problem is that our 4 SL opponents so far have easily outscored us.What the team desperately needs is a defensive tactician to look at what is going wrong & why we are leaking so many points.It is obvious that the clowns in charge of the team haven't a clue about tightening the defence to resolve our present problem when teams attack us.What happened to the sliding defence of a few years ago. I think an even bigger problem though is that a new broom is needed to freshen the club up ,with fresh ideas & probably a bit more faith in his own players instead of scapegoating to cover up poor management & poor management decisions.

Having dwelled on this for a few days, and read the comments, I'd agree with most of the observations made.

However, my mind goes back to Hull last year and the infamous dressing room lock in by the players, at a time when Hull's form was poor, certainly considering the playing staff available. All the talk on here of big time charlie's, general unrest, coach not up to the job, players without confidence in tactics were echoed on the Hull forum.

I know that Hull weren't in the predicament we were but they were at a similar season nadir at this time. The players cleared the air, probably spoke a few home truths and turned it round.

Looking at Wires, for all the issues we've agreed on, I think a lot of it is due to player unrest and I don't think TS is the cause all of a sudden.

w
what a stupid comment. and I don't even support wire

Anyone familiar with "If" by Rudyard Kipling?

Obviously one can't judge from only having seen the try highlights, but a few of theirs came from a kick, our poor handling, and a lucky pass that went to ground and popped up for Marshall. Take away a potential 18 points makes it 16-20 to Wigan. All if's and but's and Wigan had to be alert to still score those tries and were much better than us in general but I would hardly call that result cause for a crisis. Perhaps I'm not as invested as you lot but I wouldn't be too fussed if we made it to the end of the season anywhere inside the 8. So long as we aren't looking at going down come round 23 then I'll live. Making both finals and winning the LLS was enough last year for 'meh' year this year.

I think the poster's name says it all? It's not a full blown crisis we have been unbeaten for 3 days now

The trouble with sport is that it's so unpredictable. Who would have said Leeds would figure in the mid 8's last year, or that Leicester would win the Premier League.

It all brings to mind a quote from wise old Mary Berry last year in 'Bake Off'. One of the contestant's three tier cakes had collapsed, jettisoning it's carefully constructed display of chocolate soldiers all over the kitchen floor. Understandably the baker in question was furious. Mary leans over and says "Tough titty Brian, but sh*t happens, get over it".

What's come about that later on was that a few of the senior players wanted to tell the players exactly that "a few home truths" and they didn't want the coaches to hear. It certainly worked and set us up for the year we had.

Defences are about the team playing for each other and everyone putting a shift in, I think you have hit it on the head a few players maybe not doing it.

but we had a clear the air meeting back in 2015.

how many more do we have to have before we clear out the coaching staff....??

[urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/33245868[/url

I rejoined the forum, specifically with one point in mind.
With Karl Fitzpatrick installed as the new CEO, (someone who used to work under Tony Smith), it would be very unlikely he would dismiss Smith unless it was a very sustained crisis. Even then, he would probably give him the opportunity to resign.

It would be quite the decision to make for someone new to the role. Even then, it is suggested the power of the business is in the directors, and not Karl. When it comes to Simon & Stuart et all, they certainly seem to be pally with the head coach.

No its not a full blown crisis, you'll be fine.
Your not playing well, which is surprising after the Brisbane win. But that also may be part of the problem, ...players believing that big result makes them something they are not. They have to do more than just turn up to win.
Never the less you have more than enough good players to not bounce back. Especially when after having their arises slapped a few times they decide its not very nice and they need to really turn it up.
Your easily good enough to go on a 5 match winning run and this nightmare will be behind you. It will probably do you good anyway. Players can get a bit too up themselves you know.
You will be in the eight easily. You may well still make the top 4. Both you and Saints will be there at the business end, I'm sure of that.
The season is long, you don't have to be a frontrunner now, were not even at Bechers first time round.

But one thing that does puzzle me is what does Sims actually bring ? He's just no threat whatsoever. Offloads are fine but he's thinking about them before he's even received the ball. Surely he has to bend the line sometimes otherwise his predictable offloads are just swallowed up. Needs to up his metres for me and his tackle intensity. Bang average prop, but he talks a good game.

I don't think there is fear of relegation if that is what constitutes a crisis. But I think there is a very high likelihood that we have already said goodbye to a home playoff in the semi-finals and even reaching the 4 is in doubt now. So no crisis, just a disappointing season looks likely.

Didn't we have a bad start in 2015 as well before the "clear the air talks" ? I don't think it got much better after though did it.

Funnily enough, I was going to write the same thing this morning. Does anyone know how the decisions to dismiss Cullen and sideline Lowes were made? Ie, is it a board show-of-hands, or is it ultimately Moran's prerogative, as majority shareholder?

its
its far too early in the season . and you are a better team then your results just now.

Cullen resigned after the Castleford defeat. He was not dismissed.