If Leeds had signed San Burgess as head coach this forum would have gone into meltdown

I think they've been pretty smart in pairing him with Martin Gleeson to be honest, he does the technical coaching and Burgess the motivation/man management.

Pretty sure Richard Marshall is there too. I remember saying at the time Burgess will go well with support around him. That’s what they’ve done.

I think more significant than Marshall is Martin Gleeson. He's been in the England RU set up (shows how respected he is), and was assistant at Salford through their period of success in CC and GF. Great attack coach, who we should have picked up.

He is responsible for the mistakes , if i have 17 blokes working under me who i wanted and they kept messing up , i do not think i woud last long in a job

[quote="mattsrhinos1978"]We'r a terribly coached team, we have no structure and no plan, obvious to anyone with eyes

Our talent ID is also appalling, what kind of team are we, its Smiths team now, thats last seasons excuses out the way, so what does a Smith team look like:

Are we a Big team?
Are we a Quick team?
Are we a fit team?
Are we an intelligent team?
Are we a resilient team?

The answers no to all, we have no playing identity that translates to successful RL.

He will leave us, hopefully soon, in as bad a mess as he found us[/quote

The most accurate post on this thread

They also have probably the best half in the competition in George Williams, they hardly have a bad roster.. our England reps are Newman who is rocks and diamonds at Leeds, and possibly Mik who is again pretty much carrying the Leeds pack like the bad old days.

Signing Croft was a step in the right direction but we are still playing catch-up. I'd prefer it if we tried to play overtake.

Not as bad a mess as he found us I don't think. You know better than anyone where the youth is at today compared to years gone by. For various reasons (mostly size), Mustapha, Broadbent, Edwards, Sutcliffe, McConnell, Field and a few others didn't work out. We had a long time in the wilderness.

I do believe that Lumb, N McCormack, Edgell, Smith, Simpson, Brown, White, Cassell, Lloyd, Stelfox and some others are real chances. There are some talented lads with pace and/or size. Still a couple of years off putting a real stamp on first grade but I'm much happier about the future than I have been for a long time.

There are only enough real quality domestic players for maybe the top 4/5 clubs in SL, and gone are the days where clubs can afford genuinely first grade NRL players. The risks are huge bringing NRL players across now, they're either chronically injured, have major attitude issues, or are unproven. Nobody who can make first grade in NRL is going to choose SL in the current climate - or very few.

So Leeds have to continue to work on the youth development and actually do better there than we have before, against a backdrop of declining participation. Most importantly, we have to be better at this work than our competitors are.

Having said that we are going to need to use any quota spots very well for 2025 if we're going to plug the obvious holes in the side and mount a serious challenge. I'm actually more bothered about the squad quality and balance than I am the coach - it does take both to be successful but I don't believe our squad is good enough still regardless of who's coaching.

This is another reason I think we need to recruit from the NRL for a coach if we do replace Smith: someone with contacts and who is well thought of over there is worth its weight in gold when it comes to attracting the type of talent Leeds needs to break into the big time again.

Jim, Smith has had minimul, if any, involvment with the ID/ recruitment of any of those young players you mention

I get what your saying in regards not leaving us in as bad a state because we have the youth in the system, but the reality is, they would be in the system regardless of Smith.

What we know, is that the current first team is Smiths squad, nearly every one of them has been signed, or re-signed under his watch, so what does a Smith team look like?

We'r not particularly big
We'r not particularly fast
We'r not particularly fit
We'r certainly not intelligent
We'r not particularly resilient

Leeds arnt the only team facing the recruitment challenges you list, all S/L teams are in the same boat, if anything we have advantages over nearly everyone else, but other clubs get it right much more often than we do

I think the current squad has enough fast players (Miller, Handley, Newman, Croft etc)

Fitness, intelligence and resilience have been there if the current first team have struggled to show these things in the last couple of games.

Size is definitely a missing ingredient, especially in association with the other traits mentioned.

Right now we the team needs a) a fresh infusion of confidence as individuals and in teammates, b) whatever it takes to stop all these individual errors, and c) a few extra bodies back in critical positions.

Then we can start talking about buzzwords like identity and DNA. Right now their collective identity is shot to pieces.

when club mouthpiece peter smith starts writing about rifts between coach and players, and players obviously aren't playing for him you know he's a dead man walking.