These last games would have been an ideal time to play Balmforth off the bench with Houghton.
Something seems wrong here and i cant see the point of extending his contract if its likely Smith doesnt rate him.
An extra three or four games with Newcastle wont make him a better player yet the remaining games we have would have given Smith a much better idea of Balmforths potential for next season.
By playing Both Dwyer and Lovodua who are leaving i can only assume Smith still sees a possibility of a top six finish which in reality is non existent

Gentle was maybe unproven but had the rug pulled from under him and i believe would have been a very good manager for us had Pearson afforded him time like he did with Radford
In my opinion another knee jerk Pearson error based on the play off heavy defeat at Huddersfield yet he took the club to Wembley and we did actually get to the play offs with Gentle.
He also had to contend with having fourteen players out injured at one stage and it was probably this that cost him his job.

For me Gentle will always go down as coulda,woulda. Think he was shafted and undermined by Radford and certainly not helped by McRae either.
Agree with Bonaire in that Pearson didn’t give him enough time.

Spot on Chris I still keep in touch with the Gentles, they are a great rugby family and Peter was a blooming good coach both tactically and culturally, but his hands were tied and he did find it tough going with the difference between the application and attitude of our players compared with what he left down under. In fact several of them were disruptive to say the least. In the end its was not just Radford, but several of his pals as well who in the end did the deed. Before a Derby and predominantly for our import players he actually got me in to tell the players just what it was like to spend a week in the City as an FC fan following a Derby defeat, (not trying to be clever here just stating a fact) and I was quite surprised what I found. You say undermined Chris and you're spot on, anyone who was at Huddersfield on that bleak night in the play offs will know exactly what we mean. I'd hazard a guess that Adam was influenced by several of the players one of whom ended up as our new coach.

I'm not wholly sure that was the reason. My understanding is that Pearson had already made the decision earlier in the season, possibly as early as June, certainly no later than July. Indeed rumours to this effect began circulating through the media in the week leading up to the Warrington semi-final (last week July?).
As these rumours had their origin in the Daily Star!! everyone dismissed them as blown-up gossip dressed up as a scoop! Turns out they were a good deal closer to the mark than any of us surmised.

Before Wembley that year, a family member of mine, who is a personal friend of Pearson, told me that he would be on his way come season close. I reckon this explains Gentles somewhat muted reaction, especially in the first half, during the Huddersfield game as the one-way traffic flowed incessantly and the points tally mounted at an alarming rate! He knew it was all irrelevant in regard to his future at the club as he already knew he was flying home before the month was out.

Why Pearson had made this decision half-way through his contract, only he knows, and he's never fully explained the reasoning behind it. Maybe he simply didn't like the way Gentle made a brew after training, who knows!!

What on earth Pearson would have done if we had beaten Wigan at Wembley (in the pouring rain) and maybe backed that up by reaching OT (a long shot admittedly) heaven only knows, it would have taken a bit of story telling to explain the decision in that outcome. In a way, the Huddersfield defeat gave Pearson an out to justify a decision he had already made his mind up about.

Almost certainly, a degree of player-power was responsible for Gentles demise, but the myth that it all centred around that one game, a myth which took hold almost immediately following the defeat, doesn't tally with what I heard at the time.

We'll never know in what direction he would have taken us had he been given the time to build on the work he put in during 2012/13 but I'm afraid that is how it goes in modern-day sport, everything these days is about the here and now, win and you are safe (for another week at least), lose and you are on rocky ground. It's the way the world turns!

Fearless prediction! Hull will win this pretty comfortably.

Had a listen to about half of TS press conference last night, had to give up as Gollum was doing the interview......

Anyway, going off what Smith said I don't think Hoy will play. He said something along the lines of, if he does play it wouldn't be for the full match.

As a Leeds fan I would agree with you.
Stand in FB, no half backs and an inexperienced hooker and props who have no fight.
But we are in a rebuilding season and next year makes it 9 years now so we must be almost there in 2024.

Imagine if you'd been rebuilding since the mid eighties.

No Nene Mcdonald for Leeds either