Re: Staying or Not : Mon Sep 23, 2024 3:19 pm  

batleyrhino wrote:

I suggest you go watch your local amateur team, they will need the support and money from the food and drink, and you’ll probably enjoy it more.

My local amateur team that I followed for many years no longer exists. It was Queens RLFC. They were one of the teams that stuck to Winter rugby while the RFL were offering financial inducements to all the other teams to move to summer rugby alongside the professional game. They were BARLA cup holders and a great club in their day. The RFL effectively destroyed them and other winter based teams, and the move to summer rugby for the other clubs has been an absolute disaster. I started watching East Leeds in the summer league but they couldn’t even raise a team some weeks. The RFL has well and truly wrecked the amateur game in Leeds. Some smaller clubs may have appeared but the giants of Leeds amateur rugby are all struggling, East Leeds and Milford were in the bottom tier last season, and Stanningley hovering near the bottom of tier two. East Leeds got promoted and may have become a bit more stable again so I may go and watch them next season.

Re: Staying or Not : Tue Sep 24, 2024 3:39 pm  

If you don't enjoy it any more then stopping going makes sense. Feeling the need to tell the world about it in this way on here may make some question your motives.

But the world moves on. For me my favourite aspect of the club's great years were lingering memories of the struggles before - such as 86 and 96. It made the difficult times worth it.

Re: Staying or Not : Tue Sep 24, 2024 5:14 pm  

MjM wrote:

If you don't enjoy it any more then stopping going makes sense. Feeling the need to tell the world about it in this way on here may make some question your motives.

But the world moves on. For me my favourite aspect of the club's great years were lingering memories of the struggles before - such as 86 and 96. It made the difficult times worth it.

Agree with that. We were in the wilderness for a long time from the late 70's ( with a brief 2 year blip) up until 2004. I know we had some decent times during that period, but by and large we got stuffed when it mattered. When Danny took Senior's pass to go over for the winner at Old Trafford it was a moment of deliverance. I hope KR/Wire/Salford/Leigh fans get to have that experience in the coming weeks. I know not everybody has been following the club for the same portion of time, but if you started supporting Leeds from mid noughties on I would humbly submit that your sense of perspective and entitlement is inevitably skewed. I appreciate people have different and very valid reasons for packing it in, but I'll continue to wait for the next moment of deliverance. I don't think it will be 30 odd years this time.

Re: Staying or Not : Wed Sep 25, 2024 7:15 am  

I started watching in 1981, and was at Wigan when we won the JPT in 1984. The next win was the Yorkshire Cup 1988. After that more than a decade to the Challenge Cup 1999. It took 18 years to win a major trophy, so I'm pretty tolerant of barren spells.

But I have more sense now of how to build a decent team, and it really frustrates me to see how badly the team has been run since the end of the Goldens. Watching the team fall apart has been like watching a slow motion car wreck, with warning signs even before 2015.

On the plus side it feels that Blease is laser focused on getting us back to the top, and I'm confident Arthur will leave the club in a better state than when he arrived. The downside is it feels like we're 2-3 years away from really competing and Arthur is unlikely to be here to steer us there. I can live with that but I do understand if some have reached the end of their tether for now. Hopefully green shoots of long term recovery and they'll be back.

Re: Staying or Not : Wed Sep 25, 2024 8:07 am  

Once were Loiners wrote:

I started watching in 1981, and was at Wigan when we won the JPT in 1984. The next win was the Yorkshire Cup 1988. After that more than a decade to the Challenge Cup 1999. It took 18 years to win a major trophy, so I'm pretty tolerant of barren spells.

But I have more sense now of how to build a decent team, and it really frustrates me to see how badly the team has been run since the end of the Goldens. Watching the team fall apart has been like watching a slow motion car wreck, with warning signs even before 2015.

On the plus side it feels that Blease is laser focused on getting us back to the top, and I'm confident Arthur will leave the club in a better state than when he arrived. The downside is it feels like we're 2-3 years away from really competing and Arthur is unlikely to be here to steer us there. I can live with that but I do understand if some have reached the end of their tether for now. Hopefully green shoots of long term recovery and they'll be back.

Yep. I was there at the JP, last hurrah for the likes of Holmes, Dick and co. I'm probably more optimistic than you, in that I believe we've been fighting with the equivalent of two broken hands (due to our criminal lack of props) for the most part of the decade. I believe Arthur and Blease will sort that this year, and as result the rest of the team will improve exponentially. Not saying we'll be champions but we can stop being also rans in 25. If Salford and Leigh can compete with their lack of infrastructure there is no reason to think that we can't rise again very quickly.

Re: Staying or Not : Wed Sep 25, 2024 8:35 am  

ArthurClues wrote:

Yep. I was there at the JP, last hurrah for the likes of Holmes, Dick and co. I'm probably more optimistic than you, in that I believe we've been fighting with the equivalent of two broken hands (due to our criminal lack of props) for the most part of the decade. I believe Arthur and Blease will sort that this year, and as result the rest of the team will improve exponentially. Not saying we'll be champions but we can stop being also rans in 25. If Salford and Leigh can compete with their lack of infrastructure there is no reason to think that we can't rise again very quickly.

This year has been extremely frustrating, I do believe Blease and Arthur will fix some of the issues in the off season.

Don't know if this is a reflection of the quality of the league but there are 3 games that stick out for me, Huddersfield at home, Hull KR at home and Salford away, I still believe that we 'should' have won those with just a bit more composure. That would have had us finishing 4th, and in fact any other year finishing on 28 points as we have would have got us in the playoffs.

As I say that might be a reflection of the quality of the league.

What I would like to see next season is starting off well, getting some decent wins early on can pay dividends later on in the year, I'm usually one for saying its a long season and your start doesn't reflect your finish, but I'm ditching that philosophy next year, we need to start with some momentum so we aren't chasing points at the back end and it will also get the fans back on board.

Re: Staying or Not : Wed Sep 25, 2024 9:08 am  

christopher wrote:

This year has been extremely frustrating, I do believe Blease and Arthur will fix some of the issues in the off season.

Don't know if this is a reflection of the quality of the league but there are 3 games that stick out for me, Huddersfield at home, Hull KR at home and Salford away, I still believe that we 'should' have won those with just a bit more composure. That would have had us finishing 4th, and in fact any other year finishing on 28 points as we have would have got us in the playoffs.

As I say that might be a reflection of the quality of the league.

What I would like to see next season is starting off well, getting some decent wins early on can pay dividends later on in the year, I'm usually one for saying its a long season and your start doesn't reflect your finish, but I'm ditching that philosophy next year, we need to start with some momentum so we aren't chasing points at the back end and it will also get the fans back on board.

I'm still not over Huddersfield at home. From that point on I'd lost faith in Smith. The thumping from an understrength Wire shortly after confirmed it. Agree with your sentiments re KR and Salford, but you also have to factor in our two daylight robberies against London.

Re: Staying or Not : Wed Sep 25, 2024 9:43 am  

Agree with this. The Huddersfield at home game defeat was really inexplicable, we (twice?) built leads that should have been enough to grind out a win.

The London games were poor too, for far too long Leeds seem to more often than not be brought down to the level of the opposition. It seems like an attitudinal thing but for professional sportsmen we let this happen far too often. We've seen it happen under Arthur and Smith, but this lack of ruthlessness during the regular season arguably goes back to Brian Mac's days or even earlier. Is it a culture thing, or just chronic mis-investment in playing staff?