Yes, but he gets the best out of mostly average players and cast offs.Smith cannot get the best out of quality players.
Look at Croft, showed some nice touches but seems half the player he was at Salford so far.

Hanging in till the Leeds job is available?

maybe.
hopefully it's available monday

That crossed my mind.

We need to see how the team and Smith performs against weaker opposition, when we are being stressed a little less.

Most of the criticisms about passive defence etc. have not really been evident in the last two losses. It still may well be the case that Smith ends up losing his job this year; the problem is that you lot complain about anybody and anything. Brian Mac go so much stick despite being the most successful coach ever. Same people using arguments about "only results matter" also bag BM....

My own frustrations are around some strange decisions around player retention, one or two signings and some in-game decisions which baffle me. I really think Newman and Fus should have been off the field when they got injured; Newman could have had treatment and gone back on later if he pulled up fit; Fus was clearly knackered yet again. They were both liabilities in D, I just don't think the selection that day allowed for injuries to both those players, which is bad luck to a degree.

People still trying to blame RS for a decision Miller made which was clearly wrong, and also blaming him for bagging him in the post-match. A thousand percent RS doesn't coach that kind of decision, and that player in particular has been prone to brain farts from pre-season through. Yes he's great going forward, no complaints, but RS needs to find a way to wind in his excesses/have another player make those kind of kicks.

I don't blame the coach for individuals making those kind of errors, but there comes a point where you can blame him for still selecting those players, or putting them in positions where their weaknesses shine.

Have to say there is a chance we could lose against Hull - if we do RS is in very big trouble. Even for me, with the investment we made pre-season this year, running at a 50% win rate with some of the poor performances we've seen, isn't good enough. 60% is just about acceptable. Big game.

I have no idea how the players view RS and the coaching staff at Leeds. If he still has their support, we should see it on the field.

It's a good post, and you're right to point out BM. I think the main criticism of BM was that we mostly player averagely throughout the season with our best playing group ever, and then turned it on when it came to the play-offs. We also played some dire rugby under BM, 2015 being the exception to both those points.

With Smith, we're playing dire rugby and not looking like we'll even make the play-offs.

I do slightly disagree with your post about Miller. Either the comms (from team or sideline) or the systems were not working during that play. It's the coaches job to make sure the right players are making the calls, or setting systems in place to make sure it doesn't happen. So in that sense, I do blame Smith.

Hull/London are probably the worst two games for RS at this point. Winning well (points wise), given their form to date, no additional credit there. Any other result and he has a very big, immediate problem. I don't see how he can improve his position from these two games. There is only down side for him.

If I was GH I'd be getting ready to offer him the role for next season. He'd be more likely to leave at season end which is fair enough. I just can't see RS turning things around to get us in the top 4 and challenging for a GF appearance which is where we should be. and if that does pan out and this season ends in a whimper, off he goes. no ifs or buts.

Good post Jim. Agree with much of that.

What I would say about Miller's short drop out is that it's very symptomatic of how we've played under Smith since start of last season and for me if we had a top coach who the players feared or coached them well, then they wouldn't dare do such a brain fart 99.9% of the time, they'd make better decisions week after week, we consistently make stupid decisions, short kick offs, don't respect the ball, don't earn the hard yards first and that is a reflection of the coaching..