Croft has had a few poor games after some personal issues but he hasn’t been poor, he is part of the solution not the problem.

I disagree - as a marquee signing he should be leading by example - I have seldom seen this since he joined Leeds. As I said the pack is poor but he hasn't shown much either. You can count on less than fingers on hand the high quality performances he has put in.

I think you misunderstand - through the SL era we have developed numerous local star players. The standard of the homegrown talent is nowhere near where it once was. Where are the players of the quality of Sculthorpe, Harris' McGuire, Sinfield, Burgess, Farrell etc?

Given the core of every team is made up of British players the lack of quality here that is the main reason SL is the dogs dinner it is. Why are these players so poor and so unfit?

We only had 5 British players in that starting line up yesterday, the other 8 were overseas players. You would have to say the overall standard of the overseas players we have is pretty poor. I still can’t work out how we ended up with a long haired foreign exchange student playing centre for us. Is the real Momorovski locked up in a shed in Wollongong or somewhere ? One things for sure, if I was Brad Arthur I’d be escorting him to the front door of a Turkish barber to get that stupid hair cut sorted. He spends more time f**##g about with his hair than catching a ball right in front of his face.

It's so weird to see whenever we lose (or even win, but not as convincingly as normal) just how much of the posters on here hate our own players.

I'm all for a good discussion, and players aren't beyond criticism at all, but some of the posts are embarrassing.

Didn't manage to watch the game, but sounds like we've massively rode our luck, which we've not had much of this season. Saw BA on the behind the scenes footage say let's put this one to bed and move on. Hopeful we'll perform better against Hull and keep our push for the play-offs on track!

A painfully low quality SL game.
Barely championship standard tbh.
Echoes of the RS era, with mistake after mistake putting us under pressure and absolutely no idea in attack.
Only the defensive line speed and intent has improved.

I'm confident we have the right coach, but too many of the players are not at the required level.
Only Martin, Miller and Bentley come out with any credit.
We just need rid of the likes of Fusitua, Sangare, Frawley, Goudemand, possibly even Momirovski, Newman and Ackers.
It's a shame with Harry, but he is a shadow of the player that burst on to the scene. His pace has gone and he is awful in defence.
So far, Ackers and Momirovski have been poor signings. O'Connor has put Ackers to shame at 9.
No doubt we'll sell O'Connor to Hull.
And I don't know where we go with Cam Smith. Hasn't worked out as captain and his game has suffered.
He's not a prop. Maybe a change of club is the answer for him.

We know that the front row needs major surgery, but we also need an impact back row, a winger, a centre and a 7.
Oh, and a goal kicker.
Big changes needed this off season.

If I were to look at who will be here next season, and where we will need to strengthen, this is what I could envisage us looking like:

Miller
Hall
Newman (last season of contract, must improve dramatically or not renewed)
Momirovski (last season of contract, must improve dramatically or not renewed)
Handley
Croft
Frawley (last season of contract, must improve dramatically or not renewed)
New Prop
Ackers
New Prop
Bentley
New Backrow
O'Connor

Oledzki
Holroyd (last season of contract, must improve dramatically or not renewed)
Gannon (last season of contract, must improve dramatically or not renewed)
New Prop / Loose Forward / Smith (but must improve dramatically)

Outside of this, anyone over 25 can leave, and there will be more changes the following year based on how players perform. We have to get the foundations right for the younger players to come in, environment, culture, standards, results.

Yep I remembered Martin this morning stupid me.
Definitely Martin.

The worry is most of the garbage we have are contracted until at least next season.
So unless we can get some of them to other clubs who will take on their contract it is unlikely we see anything of significance and the thought that 2 new props will suddenly get us into the top 4 is a long way off.
BA is not Harry Potter to coin an Eric Ten Haag quote.

Batley, in all seriousness, why should Gannon be treated in the same boat as the players considered failing this season? The guy is a lot younger than most of the players you mention needing to step up, and it is hardly his fault that he's been unlucky with concussions. Not in the same category as Newman at all, even if Newman is carrying an injury.

And why is Bentley suddenly in the keep list, is it because he has a longer contract? He's also struggled with concussion and missed most of the season, like Gannon. He plays a handful of decent games after being part liability and part ineffectual because he lacks size for most of his Leeds career, and now he's a first choice player for you. You don't mention McDonnell at all who has been light years ahead of Bentley for two seasons and earned an England call-up.

I could go on... Frawley has arguably improved much more than Bentley, Ackers is also very hit and miss but gets a free pass from you.

Sunday was IMO the worst game I've seen Leeds play all season, but dissecting individual performances seems pretty pointless to me - welcome to the world of knee jerkery. Leeds have perennially tended to be brought down to the level of the weaker teams in SL, even the Goldens did it with surprising regularity (esp. under McDermott).

Look at the last few games under Arthur, we know they are much better than this, and they will be again before the season is out.

I think you have to write that match off as the whole team not putting in. Which given that our season was effectively on the line suggests - yet again - that we are desperately lacking leadership on the field. We still have too many players looking to others to take the lead and who follow whatever the vibe of the team is on the day.

I will though comment on a couple of players (aside from the generally useless like Sangare and Lisone). I sincerely hope Newman is carrying an injury, because he was woefully exposed for speed by Lee Kershaw (!) for one of the tries. Looked like he was running in treacle. And gawd help us if the plan is to use Cam Smith as a prop. He looks and runs like a second division prop from the mid 80s.

‘Knee jerkers’ after 9 shocking seasons…..lol…..

We have so many overseas players because our youth development is so poor - my core point is the quality of SL is a directly influenced by the lack of quality of the home grown talent we produce. When did Leeds last produce a half back of quality or a hooker of real quality. These are key positions in RL that you would think would be a focus for an elite professional club.

The half back issue has been a longstanding problem - going back decades. I'd say O'Connor and Johnson are pretty good hookers, particularly O'Connor. And before you say he didn't start that way, neither did a few others before him like James Lowes.

In terms of halfbacks we had McGuire, Burrow and Sinfield and then Luke Gale, who in any other era would have been a mainstay of the side but left because there was no space for him at Leeds. Agree entirely that we haven't produced anyone of note since him. To be slightly fair, I suspect there would have been little interest in looking at junior halfbacks seriously while the others were still running round as anyone we developed would have left, like Gale. We definitely dropped the ball in having nobody come through to replace them though, although there was hope that Sutcliffe would be our long term stand off.

I don't know what any of that or lack of British players generally has to do with 5 "NRL" backs looking like a pub team though. If anything they should be tearing other sides apart every week.

Carrying on with a degree of success our status of a mid table side with delusions of grandeur.

If we were producing players of the correct quality we wouldn't be needing to engage all these poor Aussie players. Sinfield made his debut in 1996, Burrow and McGuire in 2001. Luke Gale made his SL debut in 2009 - we are now in 2024 so we haven't been able to produce a half back of SL quality in 15 years? Liam Sutcliffe in 2012 so be generous to the club 12 years!!

This is not just Leeds alone - this is SL in general - quality of British players coming through the system is at an all time low during the SL era - a major contributory factor in the reducing standard of the competition.

Let's take the points one at a time. Gannon, he's clearly a talented young player, but can't seem to get on the field. If he continues in this vein for another year especially if it's concussions, I'm saying we cannot rely on him to change that run and therefore we need to look elsewhere. He may go on to have a great year next year and become a first choice back rower. Who knows? All I know is that unless we are ruthless we will not transform the squad and playing ambitions.

Bentley is the one player in a smaller pack that can have impact. He's been much better under BA than before, like he now knows his role and is capable of it. We couldn't have a small pack, but Bentley plays above his weight and if he can continue to control his aggression and attitude he can be an asset.

Regarding McDonnell, I'm not sure I see an England regular there, but you're right he should be in consideration I simply missed him.

Frawley has improved, it would have been hard for him to get worse wouldn't it. He's not at the level we should be seeing from an import, if he can't pick up then he should be replaced by someone better. Back to being ruthless again.

Ackers, like every hooker will have trouble if his front row doesn't hit the line hard and generate quick ptb. We don't do this, practically ever, so Ackers doesn't shine. He's definitely a better player than he is showing and I think if we get the props right we will see a better player in him.

We agree that Sunday was a shocker, the biggest problem was attitude, which BA described as smelly in his immediate post match I/V. I feel certain that this is at least in part down to the mental capability of many of the players, their just not ruthless (there's that word again) enough to be winners. The lack of leadership also needs addressing, we don't look to have a competent captain among the current group, and the collective playing leadership is also sadly missing. These are also reasons why I would be looking to make so many changes.

Perhaps we have different opinions of the way forwards, perhaps we have different views on what success is? I would be willing to be ruthless to create a winning culture that permeates every part of the club. This is primarily sport, and secondly business, so what you might see as Knee Jerkery I see as cutting out the weakness and building strength. Alternatively maybe it's because I've finally started to watch Game of Thrones...

Agree with most of that, apart from Gannon - just no need to bring him into this thread. Maybe as you say if he misses all next season for concussion, but are there any suggestions he will? That's surely one for another day.

Also agree that the forward pack needs the most surgery.

My point is that in a stinker of a team performance like that, there's no point highlighting the need to get rid of individuals because barring about three players all would be sacked on that performance. Yet we know most of them can play consistently better, as recent games against Wigan (etc) demonstrate. Surely the coach has some responsibility to affect the collective mentality too? He seems to have done so in the games before this one.

By the way, on a positive note, I thought Miller was actually one of the few who was consistently making good effort and executing well.

Of all the new spine players I'd have say Ackers has been the most dissapointing. At least the others can say they have won or turned ganes. I can't think of a single game where the same could be said of Ackers. I think he gets an easy ride on here because at the time of his signing everybody thought it was a great addition. Unlike Frawley for instance. That's not to say I advocate getting rid of him.

I think as Leeds fans we have become conditioned to accepting mediocrity as a step in the right direction. If you analyse the performances under Arthur we are far from a massively improved team. Beating a Wigan team that had played 3 games in a week was a standout, we’ve had a decent half here and there and people are knee jerking over the possibilities. The reality is people seem to quickly forget the poor games and halves under Arthur and even seek to promote an 18 point defeat to Warrington as an improvement even though we never looked like scoring until a second rower who is leaving put in our only decent kick of the game for a try. This team set the bar so low people have become blinded to how inept we still are and will be in the near future with this group of players.

Excellent posting, BA has been a welcome signing, improved our defensive pattern tenfold, unfortunately there is a limit to what a coach can achieve with a substandard squad.

No-one wants to accept mediocrity. We do, however, have to accept reality, something a lot of Leeds fans are struggling with. Even if it were possible to sack everyone deemed unworthy of the current HKR and Wigan teams, we would be unlikely to replace them all with exactly the right players needed in one season. And like it or not, the chances are that they would need time to gel. There is no pathway to instant success - just look how HKR have built up gradually over the seasons.

What I want to see is sustained improvement, and that hasn't happened, which is a big disappointment for a club like Leeds. The only realistic way forward is a combination of a) investment in the best junior talent coming through, b) replacing players coming off contract with better players from outside or within, c) improving the way the current squad is coached and trained, and d) finding ways to move on contracted players not performing to standard, without damaging the club's reputation as a destination for top players.

It's maybe too early to pick the bones of this season. Looking back, the sweeping changes to the spine and the messaging coming from the club raised the expectations of fans and media to unrealistic levels. We knew that the forwards needed strengthening but I for one was hoping for the likes of Gannon and Holroyd to really come to the fore and establish themselves as real 'bolters', not to mention the likes of Hudson. Whatever team we have next year, I think setting more modest and realistic goals would be sensible, while improving as much as possible.

Excellent post.

Yeah, that’s the realistic position. Fans getting upset and angry won’t sped things up. We’ve tried that!

c) is the quickest to achieve, b) can be achieved over the next couple of years, quicker [iif[/i d) can be achieved. Unfortunately a) will take much longer to filter through to the first team and will not benefit from BA's influence and is dependent on Blease ensuring that the club as a whole ensures continued investment and development of young players.