Watching the SOO shows how far behind SL is. Incredible game.

Short dropouts a feature

Yes and the tackling was brutal and scary at times.
Just shows you do not need loads of tries to be a great game.

Its great to see teams work hard and get the basics right to earn the right to take plays like short dropouts

It’s more that the rules are different over there aren’t they

NSW took one at 2 all

I think both points are true. When youve got a group of players who can perform the basics at a high level consistently you'll likeley feel more confident to take an early risk too. What would be daft would be trying to doing that stuff with a rabble who concede meters and caugh the ball up for fun before theyve got those basics in hand

Good to see some positivity on here for a change.

Arthur is making lots of encouraging comments, but he's also made it clear we can't expect miracles. Anyway, let's see how he goes after 10 games - and where he goes next.

Part of Smith's problem was the raised expectations many of us had of him. The guy did do some impressive stuff here. We did not make the GF by being 'soft'. Beating Wigan away was no easy job, and that team absorbed tons of pressure and physical attrition from Wigan and still found a way to win.

Just before our current season imploded, the way we played in that first game against Saints had lots of people on this forum excited, and many agreed it was the best rugby we had produced in years. I don't think I've seen Newman run as hard and look as dangerous ever since (not to mention several others). I suspect that psychologically the players put so much into that game that to not come away with anything dealt crippling blows to a lot of confidences. Ultimately we weren't able to play at that tempo with high skill as Smith wanted, and the experiment failed...

Yep, correct. They also execute the short drop outs very very well most of the time not like our attempts at this which were bordering on U11 stuff.

The standard of SOO this morning was unreal. What a game and what a comp they have over there... I bet Brad Arthur can't believe how pony we are for such a big club..

Genuinely curious to see what Arthur can get out of the forwards (who are now missing three middles) on Saturday and for the rest of the year. Worth remembering that we were getting beaten in the pack for a long, long time before Smith's arrival, and his inititially successful approach was born out the need to work around that weakness. Just hoping there is the same level of positivity around the coach at five on Saturday, because I think we're really up against it.

Donaldson is back Arthur so thats 14 stone middle compensating for the loss of Goudamand who is also a very small middle!

I think if we don't win this game, we can probably kiss goodbye to the play-offs this year barring a catastrophic drop in form from a team above us.

We raised for Leigh but I don't think we actually played technically great, where the result mattered most. Since then we've been very poor and the errors and lack of discipline have flooded back in.

I do think BA can make some immediate difference, but he's not going to stop instances like Martin or Fus coughing the ball up in first/second possession coming out of our red zone.

Wire away was a really good game for Arthur to see because it was an honest view of this Leeds team. Game enough, with some skill in patches, but lacking quality, size and pace and way too prone to errors and disorganisation.