Some of the best GF winning Leeds teams have been underdogs - in 2007, 2008, 2011, 2012 etc - what's your point Flexwheeler? You do realise that good teams are not always expected to win, right?

The revisionism on this forum in the last few weeks really has been epic. We've been hearing that Furner would have been a better coach than Smith if only JJB hadn't complained and got GH and Sinfield to cut short his tenure, and now being an underdog is a sign of a team playing poorly. Jesus wept.

what's epic is people watching this garbage for 18 months and thinking smith is the answer

They were underdogs in one-off grand finals but on a week in week out basis they were favourites for a large portion of games. Guess who will be underdogs a lot this season? London and Hull, because they’re crap.

Your comparison is irrelevant, invalid, and frankly damn unhelpful as people continue to make comparison with yesteryear.

If you total up how many times Leeds went into a weekly round fixture during years they won the grand final as favourites and take an average, then take the same from Smith’s 18 months, guess what?

They’ll be underdogs higher percentage of the time under smith because they play poorly and lose, often. That was my point, you get the moniker of being underdogs by being crap, to put it bluntly.

Nice back-pedalling, but it doesn't disguise the fact that your definition of underdogs was deliberately narrowed to suit your anti-Smith agenda.

I'm not sure your hypothetical scenario is going to be as revealing as you think (I suspect neither of us has the time to quantify, but please do indulge yourself). In 2022 when Smith took over, Leeds were rightly underdogs in a lot of games, but we ended winning a lot more than was expected. In 2023 we actually started as favourites in a lot of games in the first part of the season because we had made the GF - many of which we lost, but not all. Your original comment about underdogs wasn't really as clever as you thought it was, and it's not really helpful to understanding what's going on at the club.

I will continue to bring up the past where it is relevant. Especially when it helps educate impatient doom-merchants that are turning people away from reading and contributing to this forum.

That’s quite a grandiose claim about your educational potential. I find your comments interesting on this forum, can’t say I’ve ever found them educational. Yours is an opinion, just like everyone else’s, and that’s what makes the forum an interesting place. If I wanted to be educated I’d go to a fact based website, but I already know how many trophies we’ve won, which players won those trophies etc, etc. As for understanding what’s going on at the club, you will never really understand, so it’s pointless chastising someone else when you are no better placed to do so. I’m sure Rohan Smith doesn’t fully understand why it’s gone wrong this season, he will have some aspects under his control, but doesn’t seem to grasp or understand the bigger picture. I look forward to more of your opinions.

Your assumption here is that Smith can’t grasp what you can grasp though?

At the end of the day, everyone who works for Leeds for their living and isn’t just an amateur player who never made it or another sort of speccie - they know more about the game and about the club than any of us.

I actually don’t agree that all opinions are equal by the way, but the curse of social media etc is that people just polarise and it feeds reactionary behaviour.

There is a lack of respect for expertise and experience these days - and respect for the fact that pretty much everyone, like you, is just trying to carry their own crosses.

This isn’t to give RS a free pass but some of the arguments against him on here are paper thin. Heard on the world famous podcast about how much JOC has developed over 2 years. Credit given to various players for that. Hm hmmm.

I said before the season started that the Smith situation would be assessed after 10-12 games.
It's interesting after 10 games.
The performances in the main have been very poor - and are a big cause for concern.
But the fact is that we have won 6 games and are 2 points off the leading pack.
We will probably lose the next 2, but then have 4 very winnable games.
Let's assess after those 6 games.
We could be in the mix, we could be in the bottom 4.

FWIW, there is no point sacking Smith mid-season, regardless of where we are.
But if we continue with the dour performances I think we should be looking to change at the end of the season.
The biggest thing that needs to change is the manner of the performances.
We look unstructured, disorganised, lacking leadership and just badly coached.
But we are low on confidence.
A few wins could turn that round.
Defeats will sharpen the knives.

Bring up the past ? You may care to reflect on last season which was a disaster, several posters on here questioned Smith’s ability. We were all shouted down. Told it was a transition period and everything would be ok this season. We have two upcoming games in which everyone is giving us no chance whatsoever. That’s a measure of how far we have sunk. Once again (sigh) I will praise praise Smith if he turns the situation around.
Whoever is the coach next season, would like Danny McGuirre to come in as the assistant coach.

My assumption is that Smith can’t grasp what some other managers grasp. Big difference. I assume you don’t rate Rob Oates or his work at Headingley because he never played the game , or does he get a free pass from you ? I don’t know if your “lack of respect for expertise and experience” is related to Leeds Rhinos, Rugby League or life in general. If it’s the latter , people are more than ever entitled to question people who rely on their supposed expertise and experience to earn a living. There are some dangerous people out there who trade on those two supposed attributes. As for carrying my own cross, I think you’ve been listening to too many JJB podcasts.

I dunno, I’m not seeing much questioning on here I am seeing a witch hunt from some.

It’s like, if I questioned you on how you did your job, without doing it myself and without knowing what I was talking about / and if I said you were **** at it would my opinion be worth as much as yours? Not all opinions are worth the same.

A lot of comments about how we shouldn`t sack RS mid season - this is the best time to sack him. He has failed in all areas , and teams are already looking at recruitment for next season.
Does anybody in their right mind want to let RS loose on next years recruitment ?

I do, if that means you don’t think I’m in my right mind I’ll wear it.

He has one more recruitment cycle for me. I like who he’s got rid of more than who he’s brought in so far, and clearly we need better signings than Frawley going forward. I’m hoping with AMT on board now, Croft is the first of several higher profile signings…

It's not about recruitment.
It's about playing style, an identity, moving forward.
On that he's failing miserably

It is partly about recruitment in my view. I don’t believe this current squad is good enough to top Super League. Do you?

Identity is a bit of a buzz word again, I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.

Playing style… I think there is a way we want to play, but we have lost the ruck too much this year and also made too many stupid errors. I’d like to see us more dominant in D; bringing us back round to players again, especially in the middle.

We are a prop short, ideally two needed. Both need to be guys who can offer what our current cant.
I cant see us being top 4 until that happens and we get some luck with being able to field our first choice outside backs for large chunks of the season.
Something that hasn't happened for a while.

However, this team is better than results suggest. They just can't seem to do anything well consistently and look poor in structure/ organisation etc.
Who is to blame and why it's happening is where people disagree