Where do we go from here : Fri May 05, 2023 9:04 pm  

Another season and we are not contenders and look like bottom 4 side, we cannot jeep saying next tear will be better as we have been saying that since 2018.knives starting to get drawn in Smith he’s under massive pressure now, but its just not working. Still some under performing deadwood in the side, but we are simply still not good enough and the results are not good enough. We could be in the same situation this time next year and then gave to get rid of Smith and then yet another rebuild.

To me its simple now, Smith changes his tactics and we make the playoffs or he has to go. Don’t like going down the knee jerk football route but coaches are judges on results and results are very poor. Anything less than 60% win ratio and play offs is the minimum, any less and we get someone in who can take us back in contention. We have to be ruthless the slow rebuild approach keeps failing, wigan, Saints, etc would not accept mediocrity

Re: Where do we go from here : Fri May 05, 2023 9:27 pm  

Smith for me is in the last chance saloon big time. We have a very good squad which is massively underperforming.
Tactics are amateur at best.Next three games are massive,if we lose all three.....well let's get Luke Gale back!!!

Re: Where do we go from here : Fri May 05, 2023 9:55 pm  

Does anyone know if crowd attendances are dropping off yet?

Re: Where do we go from here : Fri May 05, 2023 9:56 pm  

13000 tonight

Re: Where do we go from here : Fri May 05, 2023 9:59 pm  

The Magic Rat wrote:

13000 tonight

That’s pretty healthy. Wonder how long the enthusiasm will remain……

Re: Where do we go from here : Fri May 05, 2023 10:01 pm  

I said a few weeks ago that we shouldn’t get rid of RS now, he has the whole season for me, but he has got to recognise that the style of play that he’s asking these players to play is so alien and they are incapable of producing winning performances consistently.

The style of play must be changed, and that’s on the coach. He’s not dropping the ball, but he is asking players or make very high risk plays that they simply are not capable of.

Re: Where do we go from here : Fri May 05, 2023 10:04 pm  

rollin thunder wrote:

Another season and we are not contenders and look like bottom 4 side, we cannot jeep saying next tear will be better as we have been saying that since 2018.knives starting to get drawn in Smith he’s under massive pressure now, but its just not working. Still some under performing deadwood in the side, but we are simply still not good enough and the results are not good enough. We could be in the same situation this time next year and then gave to get rid of Smith and then yet another rebuild.

To me its simple now, Smith changes his tactics and we make the playoffs or he has to go. Don’t like going down the knee jerk football route but coaches are judges on results and results are very poor. Anything less than 60% win ratio and play offs is the minimum, any less and we get someone in who can take us back in contention. We have to be ruthless the slow rebuild approach keeps failing, wigan, Saints, etc would not accept mediocrity

Not contenders, have I missed something is it September?

Re: Where do we go from here : Fri May 05, 2023 11:59 pm  

When you say that players aren't capable of playing the gameplan, do you mean they aren't capable of playing the style we had last year? If so that seems a bit odd.

Smith has made some mistakes. The pre season games being treated as though it was all a bit of a lark was definitely a mistake, as we just didn't hit the ground running. Faffing around with Gannon at halfback, others being tried in all sorts of roles and short kickoffs suggested everyone thought they could just pick up from where we left off last season, add in some new players and off we'd go.

The way forward for me starts with defence. Stop trying to 'contain' the other side and start thinking in terms of winning the field position. Until Smith fixes that I can't see much changing. Teams have worked out that we'll almost give them an early lead if they come out of the blocks fast. Give any team a 12-point lead and they'll fancy their chances.

The defence is part of our problem in attack, as we're losing the field position battle almost every game. Starting our sets deeper means having too many 'wasted' plays just to make back yards, or trying to put on attacking moves from deep, which is inherently risky and generally involves unstructured plays. Add the pressure of almost always being behind and its not hard to see why our attack is all over the place at times and individuals are making more errors than they should.

During the off-season there were plenty of us (including me) saying we'd be OK with mid table and some entertaining rugby. I'm not sure I feel that way now. I want us to do better than we are. Smith hasn't got his own team, especially in the spine, and until he gets that we won't know how good a coach he is. He won't (and shouldn't) get the boot, and next year will be the time to know whether he can lead us back to the top. Problem is he's burning through a lot of the goodwill from last year, and if things don't start to look more positive he won't be the first to discover that past efforts don't mean much in sport.

Re: Where do we go from here : Sat May 06, 2023 12:14 am  

Will be interesting to see how we approach the cup, Smith’s first time in charge in that competition, we were outstanding in the playoffs last year we need to get back to that do or die attitude in the cup!

Re: Where do we go from here : Sat May 06, 2023 7:14 am  

It is a long season and we could still get on a run. Personally I didn’t expect too much this year because we have so much salary cap committed to players who are either inconsistent or fringe.

This season is all about developing the youth and figuring out whether to retain some of the more marginal senior players. Honestly there are very few senior players who I think we would genuinely miss were they to go.

Maybe some had higher expectations this year but this playing squad still isn’t good enough yet. See what RS can do with some budget and then we can see.

For those saying it might be another rebuild year next year etc well yes it might be. I do think we are slowly heading in the right direction but my word we lost our way badly.