Saints didn’t look like that last week though did they, it’s ok getting up for s local derby but they’re not the team they once were at all.

I don’t give a monkeys what Brian Carnet says, or John Wilkin, I can have my own opinion and that is that the team is not as bad as it has been playing recently.

Whilst I agree the team is capable of performing much better than we’ve seen from this group of players, recently is probably stretching it a fair bit. They’ve stunk the place out pretty consistently for at least 18 months, I’d say that’s a bit longer than recently.

Let’s hope that BA can instil some good standards and behaviours. He doesn’t seem the kind to accept shortcuts and is big on holding people accountable for performance, so we should see some improvement.

61 out of past 71 weekly rounds we've been in bottom half of the table. Disgrace....

61 out of past 71 weekly rounds we've been in bottom half of the table. Disgrace....

You obviously have a right to your own opinion, as for saints whilst in a gentle decline ,they have had no problem in defeating us this season. As for Brian Carney he had a pretty good rugby career and a good education, so I think his opinion carries some weight. You just have to look at the league table to see what a mess we are in. Unless things change dramatically we are just a run of the mill mid table side, living on past glories with the best ground in the league. If you think this squad of players will somehow save the day you are sadly mistaken. My only hope is Arthur will spell out the hard facts. Although our predicament is plain to see for the majority of people. Thing that annoys and frustrates me is it’s not an instant quick fix we may have to wait quite some time to see any green shoots of recovery. However i am reasonably optimistic, as the majority of the fans and the club have finally woken up to the fact that we are in a bad situation and things need to change. The first smart move was appointing Blease and Arthur, smith should have been fired weeks ago.

Woken up mate? We’ve been mostly gash for almost ten years, this isn’t an epiphany moment shared only by the enlightened few.

It’s not rocket science, we need better players and effective coaching both.

People tend to look at a rugby league side in absolute terms because it’s how we like to compartmentalise. The truth IMO is that we need at least three, maybe more real high quality players. We don’t need to, and can’t, change the whole side.

There is absolutely no guarantee Leeds will make top six this year, or next. What we do is change one or two things at a time and we evolve into a stronger club.

You may have been aware of the situation, gash as you quaintly call it. Certainly not everyone on here until recently shared your opinion. Likewise the club who should have fired smith months ago. You say we need three quality’players, agree with that. Agree also we can’t change the whole side. What needs to change is the lack of intensity within the team, a good hard nosed coach can Change that. Look how saints piled into Wigan last night.
I was out the country for the leigh game so I can’t comment on that. But most of the time we seem to be off the pace for the majority of games. As several posters have commented, god alone knows what they do in training.

You’re creating a strawman argument- nowhere did I say this current squad will ‘save the day’ I simply stated its capable of playing better than we have recently wether that improvement will be enough to get us in the playoffs we will have to see, we’re currently 2 points of six it isnt insurmountable and if Smiths tactics and coaching abilities were a big part of the problem we should see some improvement as we’ve got a very good coach in place for the rest of the season.

The point of we are not that far off was in relation to the teams around us and the playoff places.

Carney's comments are interesting as they're from an outside perspective. I'd say he's wrong on one thing though, the idea of McDermott staying on. He was a big part of the problem in terms of decline, as there was clearly no succession planning as the Goldens retired, and our youth development just wasn't good enough for some time before he left. Our decline post 2015 was predictable - what wasn't is how poorly the club has reacted since then.

I think we're all agreed we're a few players short of being good enough. The big question is how much of our performances can be fixed by a new coach. I look at our pack and see soft puddings compared to the best. But the pack was built by Smith to play a particular way. Can they become more aggressive with and without the ball? Do they have it in them?

I don't think we have enough who can play a more in your face style, but I will be happy to be proved wrong. Also very interesting to see what happens with errors. For too long we have been a side full of poor errors. Can that be fixed by more accountability? Will players be dropped if they make howlers?

At least Arthur's appointment has made the remainder of the season interesting!

Just adding some intensity in defence and composure in attack would easily make this squad a top 6 team. Yea, we're not close to the top 2, but they should definitely be good enough for a 4th to 6th place finish.

We've probably left ourselves too much to do now given our run in.