Once were Loiners wrote:Its been so badly managed that the years of 'transition' to date have been completely wasted. The clearout that was so obviously needed is almost done - there will be hardly any players left at the start of next year who were here at the start of 2022, and even fewer starting in key positions. That should have happened years ago. It didn't and we are still right at the start of developing a quality team.

Smith is right in saying that the best way to success is to develop as many quality players as you can, and then bring in quality. Problem is that while we may have a lot of talented kids at the club now, it will be at least 3-4 years before we have enough of them at the right stage of development to make a real difference. Even that approach only works if you bring in real quality to fill the gaps. Ali, Senior, Bai, Webb, Donald, Peacock, Leuluai, Ellis etc were as important to the Golden Generation succeeding as having Sinfield and co come through the juniors.

Unless we get the signings right - and its looking shaky right now - we will still be struggling even if the kids turn out as hoped.

Exeter Rhino wrote:John Wilkin saying Leeds are the biggest flop of SL in 2023:

The biggest flop in Super League right now is Leeds Rhinos. They've just limped out of the playoffs. Your best player is playing for Castleford, and your best young player has left because you wouldn't pay him enough money. A bizarre club at the minute that makes very little sense.

I agree with the general point he makes, but the specifics are nonsense, i.e. the suggestion that Austin was ever our best player (sure, he was up there for about four games), and even more so that Sam Walters is our best young player (he has the potential to be Adrian Morley but could still end up being Andy Hay - he certainly played that way against Wigan).

Good to see Wilkin is still 'healing' after those GF losses

tomlufc wrote:Can someone just remind me, was this season the start of a new transition or a pre-cursor to the new transition and the real transition starts next season? I'm just wondering when is it that we're out of the transition and no longer able to use it as an excuse for jam tomorrow?

christopher wrote:Personally id say Rohan Smith was brought in to oversee a 3 1/2 process or call it a transition if you like and in fairness wether you rate him or not he’s cleared out a lot of the squad in his first year, and whichever way you look at it that needed to happen.

batleyrhino wrote:Smith has done a good job in terms of removing a lot of dead wood from the squad so far, he's still got a lot to go, and we've just resigned some of it for another year or two. He's been let down badly by GH who replaced that dead wood with kids or second tier players with the odd exception during the last closed season. I would have said that we could have done most if not quite all the reshaping in 2 off seasons (this is the second) if we had replaced the departing players properly, but we haven't and don't appear to be now either..