Not a lot (if any) improvement on the field since McDermott's sacking. In fact you could argue our defence has got worse.

I thought at the time (and more so now given post McDermott 'performances' that the timing of his sacking was odd.

if GH wasn't going to pull the trigger earlier, surely it would have been better timing at the end of this season?

Surely if you are going to sack a coach when we did, you do it in the knowledge you have a better candidate to come in immediately?

Whilst bringing Sir Kev in as Director of Rugby appeared a smart move, having Lowes as coach didn't and still doesn't

Lowes was sacked at Warrington and was coach when Bradford got relegated from SL. He was never the quality of coach to bring in when it was looking likely we'd be in the middle 8's dog fight

Surely, IF we had no Aussie coach lined up to take over immediately it would have made sense to stick with McDermott until a 'proper' successor could be found in the close season??

For all his faults McDermott had been a winner and has sailed the middle 8 ship before yet we dumped that for a bloke who has won nothing as a coach and someone who has never coached before and who previously said he had no coaching aspirations.

As the weeks go by the decision made by GH (more so the timing of it) is looking poor IMO

A campaign in the middle 8's was not something to put in the hands of a rookie coaching team like this

Oh, the irony.

Spot on.
Something i mentioned a few weeks back, we look a worse team since BM was sacked. We have beaten 2 championship teams and Widnes at home since Sinfield took over and look poorer than at any point in the season. McDermott's experience and history of getting teams to perform towards the end of the season would have been invaluable now.
We are in deep trouble and a win at Widnes is an absolute must now if we are to avoid the MPG.

I think people are in some sort of weird time zone if they think we are worse now than when McDermott left. Have we improved? Absolutely not to what we should have done. But let’s nit kid ourselves, we were on a massive downward slide with that chump in charge, he had totally lost the dressing room, and that is the problem that has not recovered. To think we would somehow be better off with him still here is just plain daft.

Most incredible stat from game. We missed 28 tackles, which is poor, although pretty much what we have been doing all year, and a massive improvement on a lot of games.

Hull KR however missed 48 tackles, and actually made 57 tackles less in the game, which is an utterly pathetic stat, and something we haven’t even lowered ourselves to yet. And yet we still couldn’t even beat that.

Our right edge of Briscoe, Ward, and Sutcliffe, were responsible for half of our missed tackles.

Peteru should certainly be starting games.

We lose games, and conceed the points we do simply because of our inability to manage a game. There is nobody there to do it. We have the ball, we make the breaks, we make the yardage, but we have absolutely no idea what to do with the ball, and at the end of sets. We kick it up, but no one attack’s it. Nobody is interested in setting something up and executing. As a result we give the ball away and are back on the back foot.

For some reason this club, and a number of fans, have this strange view that if you have been around in the team for years, then you are a leader. They are nit leaders, that is shown weekly, they have done what they have on the back of others. Leaders show much much more than these do in setting the right example. But with halfs who can not mix up a game along with this, you just become the predictable trash you see now.

Look at the Sutcliffe break who was backing up - its embarrassing

To be fair, that wasn’t an ordinary break, it was an interception, with the rest in the defensive line. More embarrassing on that one was that he couldn’t score, and didn’t even look like he had the confidence to.

However, your point is still right in the rest of game, as we actually made more clean breaks than Hull KR, but where was the support. The Ablett one a clearer example.

I don't understand why people think things will change because McDermott has gone. These players now have a culture instilled in them by McDermott i.e. sloppy training, poor adherence to conditioning and a culture where winning wasn't important as they would selected every week. You cannot simply put back 6/8 months of poor conditioning and mindset in 2 months.

It happens in soccer because even the best sides can be frustrated by a well organised defensive side - Look at Middlesborough on Friday - Pulis' whole footballing rationale is about conditioning and not conceding he hasn't got an attacking bone in his body - that simply doesn't happen in RL - the best side will win in the end in most cases.

they sacked Mac and wanted an immediate improvement and who do they appoint ? Lowes ? why ?

100% correct. Wrong decision by Hetherington and I pray we get away with it...

Neither can a turd be polished. We carry too many very, very ordinary players and have no-one who remotely approaches having star quality. We need a decent coach who, without input from Sinfield, is allowed to get on with the job of getting them to be the best they can be. Then start building by signing some quality.

i'm guessing they could see the slide and wanted to stop it. I agree lowes wasn't the man, although he is just the coach. sinfields been brought in to try and get off field standards back up to scratch.
touch and go if we make top 3 but massive changes needed if we do.
the malaise started under macdermotts reign and sals right, its hard get standards back quickly

I would agree but this side should be good enough to reach the top 8 - this squad is no worse than Wakey, Catalans, Hull - the fact it has delivered even on its potential has in part got to be down to the coach/conditioning

This was a commercial decision - corporate sponsors were turning their back on the club - something had to change. The quality of the rugby most weeks under McDermott has been pretty poor and that is what corporate sponsors were bringing their clients to watch and they had simply had enough.

The club wanted/needed to increase their prices and they now had 20 boxes to sell and another 450 places at top dollar something had to change. Over their shoulder a resurgent Leeds Utd.

BOOM

Quite a few negatives to take away from the game:

Poor game management
Continued questionable attitude in defence and when supporting breaks
No points scored in the last 20 minutes (IIRC), with a return to the predictable low percentage touch, pass, and prayer.
Ablett's injury

On the positive side, our attack looked good at times. Maybe we should just focus on scoring as many points as possible if players are not interested in doing defence anymore? All Leeds needed to do in the last 10 minutes was to send the message out to continue to play direct and be patient, but instead they panicked. The 'touch and pass' stuff only works on the back of metres made, how dumb are our play-makers? As others have alluded, we are crying out for a real leader on the field...

Stats are great and can be used to make any sort of point, especially when trying to get a dig at the opposition.

I’ll give you the only stat that actually matters. Rhinos 36 KR 38

Why so sensitive? He did not say Leeds deserved to win; the bigger point was more critical of Leeds than HKR. Enjoy your win.

I agree about the problems Rhinos have.

We may have missed more tackles and actually made less tackles overall. These figures are described as utterly pathetic. What is utterly pathetic is that with so much ball you failed to win. Rovers scored one more try and only missed conversions and Danny dropping the ball over the line saved you from a more humiliating defeat. But then stats can be used to make any point you want.

What the stats show is just what a poor standard the current SL is at - nearly 80 missed tackles in a game is pathetic

The over reaching financial position must be influencing everything IMHO. I don't know what the debt is for the redevelopment, but I've heard £45m - granted, that includes the cricket side of things. The club's essentially a business, don't forget, and the idea is that you make a profit - otherwise the writing's on the wall.
There were 11000 there yesterday (including, I thought, terrific passionate committed supporters from the far east.....). I'd think that's a good crowd for SL on a Saturday in the late summer. How many will the new ground take ? 20,000 ? Can't see any way to conjure up many more fans now - the opposite will surely apply as Mr Bielsa (hope that's right) attracts thousands more to Elland Road. And people will struggle to pay to support both codes, so something will have to give.
The marketing office's vision may be different but the reality will be a half empty stadium for much of the time (echoes of supporting the Tykes with 2000 in....).
The new prices for 2019 are, inevitably, higher then at present. The dilemma of course is pitching them at a level which will bring in revenue rather then kill off support - only time will tell whether they've got it right.
I agree that the coaches and team need strengthening, but you need money to do that. And as things are progressing there won't be enough.

(BTW I watched Ferres through the game on Sat. What does he do ? A couple of desultory hit ups, and a conspicuous plan to put himself where the action isn't)

I agree and thought he had a poor game. He was out of position for the first try too and made several bad defensive decisions.

while I reading this its so nice to sit back with my hands behind my head and feet up with a smile

Absolutely no improvement since that "chump" was sacked which would suggest talk he had lost the dressing room is rubbish. You would have expected an immediate reaction if that had been the case.

He has just gone 20 not 18 which is all part of the hype! Yes he does have bags of potential and I agree fullback is a very difficult position but some posters have been less forgiving with Golding facing the same difficulties and rarely has a bad game.

Golding is the more experienced player and 3 years more physically developed and IMO is the better defensive player and regularly makes several try saving tackles per match. He is also developing his attacking game and is able to play in several positions including defending the middle. Having had an outstanding game in his last outing with two tries and about 4 try saving tackles he is then dropped in favour of Walker who, despite his great promise, is still a developing project. This was a gamble on the part of Sinfield which failed as was the decision to select Thompson over Smith and to keep playing Sutcliffe at stand off.

We are playing for our very SL lives and we should be selecting our best defensive players. I suspect Sutcliffe is only getting in because we do not have a goal kicker (which in itself shows how poor our recruitment strategy has been) but he rarely puts over the difficult kicks and there are several others who can kick the easy ones.