Sinfield isn't particularly small.

He was by GH - he wouldnt be playing so they insulted him with an offer and suggested he could work in corporate hospitality!!

Who had the last laugh?

Be careful what you wish for - if Smith goes JJB will be in there like a shot - no matter how Smith may be nobody wants that.

Schoey for me, Iestyn not bad either in his absolute pomp. We have been blessed with good Stand offs. We have not had anyone half as good as those or Mcguire last 6 seasons.

our recruitment has been appalling. in fact it's been downright embarressing

All greats.

While I agree its a big shopping list all in one go.
I'd settle for a top grade FB and a proven organiser at 7.
A centre or winger if possible.
Getting a good 6 would be great,depends on what's available and SC etc

Schofield was a great centre - very average half back. Iestyn on the other hand - the greatest player I saw in a Leeds shirt in the SL era. His body swerve was a thing of beauty

couldn't agree more david. in 98 and 99 harris was untouchable.
what a player

Schofield was far more than " a very average halfback ". He Captained GB from that position against a great Aussie side, ( when we came as close to matching them in a 3 match series as any time probably since 1970) and was consistently one of our best when at stand off.

This is all a matter of opinion - he was a much better centre - he was world class - than as a half back IMO of course.

Not difficult to be amongst the best players at Leeds in the late 80's early 90's

A star in the true sense of the world - you would pay just to watch him - a genius sadly lost to RU in his prime

One of the best players I’ve ever seen at Leeds in my lifetime

I suppose we need to recalibrate our expectations. Since the start of the goldens (I go a lot further back than then) I’ve expected top 4 and a decent cup run every year. There was a period where I think we were that good we could reasonably expect a final per year.

Since the last hurrah in 2017, it seems that we can’t even expect to make the playoffs or if we do we limp in and fail quickly. Last year was a change, ironically I don’t think we played well, but found a way to win when it mattered. That’s what is keeping Rohan in a job longer term at the moment I think.

So, my expectations have been significantly lowered by the years (and it has been years) of significant underperformance for a club of the size and resources of Leeds. We should be top 4 each year, and in with a genuine shout of winning things. We’re a long way from that right now.

Since 2017 we had two dreadful seasons,

then in 2020 (a weird year all round) we finished in the playoffs and admittedly got knocked out in the first round
2021 we won the challenge cup made the playoffs and got to the SF
2022 after an upheaval of a start we got to the Grand Final

We've had 4 coaches since 2018 and numerous back room changes.

What's keeping Rohan in a job is he's only starting out in the brief he's been given and it isn't all going to be plain sailing, the club since 2017 has made various bad decisions but I believe they are starting to rectify that.

Fully agree. For too long now have we been way off from winning trophies and competing for the top spots in Superleague. It's not good enough and needs to change fast.

Now, undoing a lot of the damage since 2017 to start of last season will take time, there's no doubt about that. We have some cracking young players especially in the pack but nothing in the halves or at fullback as we all have discussed on many occasion, and that is a huge challenge for the club to solve. We have Fusitua and Mcdonald in the back line who seem to get a fair few injuries, Fusi in particular needs to be sent packing end of this season along with Tetevano and his wages spent in the halves and no doubt the pack, same with Sezer who is done. I'm no recruitment expert, none of us on here are, but until we get some good homegrown players in those areas we are going to have to look at young overseas talent. Jack Sinfield looks a long long way off yet, he needs to go on loan imo.

We're also lacking a top leader out there. The best teams have 2 or 3 in there team as we did at our best with JP, JJB, Kev, Mags, Buderus etc. We had great talent in the backline such as Webb, Hall, Watkins, Hardaker, Moon, Briscoe (in his pomp), Mags, Burrow.. the gulf between then and now is absolutley huge.

The damage started way before 2017. The utter lack of succession planning on the playing side was criminal. We ended up nearly relegated in 2016 and won the most awful final in SL in 2017 against a Cas team that should have blown us away, thanks basically to McGuire. That proved to be a blip in our decline as the following year we were nearly relegated again. 2015 is eight years ago - had we focused all efforts on youth development we should have a bunch of homegrown mid 20s players at the peak of their game in the squad today. The only ones remotely close to fitting that bill are Handley and Smith.

This is going to take a few years more to fix because the proven pathway to success is youth development, and we've really only started fully focusing on that in the last couple of seasons.

Incredible to think youth development was neglected. When you consider the best players were many home grown, and Saints have won so much with a core group of talented young former academy players too ….
Not rocket science to see what’s important!

Yep, you're correct. It is shocking when you really think about it. But, we need to start showing an upward trend now but that's not happening other than the young talent in the pack.

Though there are obvious issues with the squad, the players that are there are better quality than we are seeing. Constantly doing hard work coming away from your own line is lowering their quality in attack. If we had a shaun wane type coach I recon we would've won significantly more matches this year. Maybe we need to invest in a dedicated defense coach

maybe we should just play with good line speed and aggression in attack and defence.
maybe someone should mention it to rohan.....

Yep there’s that too. Clock is ticking on Rohan to get it right

Looking like Olpherts to wing Handley to Fb Myler to 7 hope the former have been practicing catching bombs.

Smith asserts that we've been in all the games this year and the majority could have gone either way. I'm not sure how he can say this is true as we never looked like beating leigh, KR, Salford and especially Warrington.

deluded