The never-ending, perpetual, and forever rebuild : Fri Jun 24, 2022 9:00 am  

Because by the time we get one area sorted, another area of the squad will become screwed. If they manage to get the pack sorted in 2 or 3 seasons, then the backline or halfbacks will be a problem.

It really is a bag o' poop.

We haven't brought through a top-quality young player in donkey's years. It could be Newman, but we can't call that yet. Our overseas signings are just relentlessly bad.

We're not going to be a grand final team for the foreseeable future. Indefinitely maybe.

Re: The never-ending, perpetual, and forever rebuild : Fri Jun 24, 2022 9:43 am  

FlexWheeler wrote:

Because by the time we get one area sorted, another area of the squad will become screwed. If they manage to get the pack sorted in 2 or 3 seasons, then the backline or halfbacks will be a problem.

It really is a bag o' poop.

We haven't brought through a top-quality young player in donkey's years. It could be Newman, but we can't call that yet. Our overseas signings are just relentlessly bad.

We're not going to be a grand final team for the foreseeable future. Indefinitely maybe.

And we are miles behind the curve on recruitment. Similar to Man Utd it looks to me like nobody at the top is really hungry to win any more and as a result that filters down to the poor to mediocre stuff we keep churning out.

Re: The never-ending, perpetual, and forever rebuild : Fri Jun 24, 2022 10:48 am  

Recruitment has been terrible since 2015, and has been compounded by poor choice of coaches and taking our eye off the ball with youth development.

It does feel as though Smith is a big change. He's already dropped players that looked to be able to play regardless of their deficiencies, and we're starting to let players go that shouldn't be at the club. First business for new players is the props. Even if that was all we do before next season that would change things immensely - go forward and oomph in defence make a huge difference.

Its true that if we plug that gap others will appear. The only long term solution to that is youth development, which means you don't have to make signings for every position. Otherwise we'll just be forever plugging gaps with signings as others age and need replacing.

Re: The never-ending, perpetual, and forever rebuild : Fri Jun 24, 2022 1:19 pm  

We have to acknowledge that transitions by their nature do not necessarily need to take a fixed period of time, and it takes a lot of vision, hard work and investment to put any team at the top of SL, especially in the salary capped era. No-one knows how long we need.

Like it or not, it's a different world to the Graham Murray era, for example, when a new coach and a bit of canny recruitment turned us into a top team over night. The best SL teams are all spending up to the same cap and the scope for easy gains on the best clubs is limited.

Since 2016 there have been multiple - largely failed - attempts to turn things around. We've had to hit the reset button far too many times, largely because the threat of relegation prevented longer-term plans being carried through, which had the knock-on effect that the people responsible for implementing these changes have left prematurely (e.g. Sinfield) or been forced out (McDermott, Furner, Agar etc).

Talk of 'forever rebuilds' is unduly pessimistic in my opinion, but likewise we can't expect things to change overnight. The confidence and composure of the first team is fragile unless they are used to performing well most weeks, as Saints are. It's frustrating but also understandable that when we're playing top-class opposition and a series of decisions go against us, this mental fragility comes to the fore.

History shows us that the clubs that have tried to spend their way to the top have largely failed to secure success in SL, so why should Leeds be any different? Simply replacing Prior and Tetevano with the best NRL props we can afford will help but it won't necessarily take us to the level of Saints, at least not straight away. The path to success - however long it takes - surely requires a core of homegrown talented players to come through (often saving us money on the cap until they become internationals), supplemented by a small number of quality signings from outside the club. At the moment we seem to have things the wrong way around - the best players are largely recruited from outside and we need to pay more to retain their services, and younger homegrown players are filling the gaps.

So far I'm cautiously pleased with the impact Smith is having. There's been an improvement in performances, especially with ball in hand, and there's evidence that he's making the right calls on retention, making sure that quality younger players in the system are getting game time. He's mentioned in one of the recent interviews that we can expect some new signings, but perhaps we should be more hopeful about his impact working with the likes of Walters, O'Connor, Gannon etc, as well as those a year or so away from regular first team selection. We're all hurting after a frustrating loss but this slump won't be fully fixed by signings alone. The coming weeks will no doubt be a useful gauge of Smith's talents. Continued performance improvements, both from the team and individuals, with a some good results thrown in amongst the losses, is what we need to see IMO. I don't think we're ready to be routinely beating the top teams and tonking everyone else just yet.

Re: The never-ending, perpetual, and forever rebuild : Fri Jun 24, 2022 1:23 pm  

Exeter Rhino wrote:

We have to acknowledge that transitions by their nature do not necessarily need to take a fixed period of time, and it takes a lot of vision, hard work and investment to put any team at the top of SL, especially in the salary capped era. No-one knows how long we need.

Like it or not, it's a different world to the Graham Murray era, for example, when a new coach and a bit of canny recruitment turned us into a top team over night. The best SL teams are all spending up to the same cap and the scope for easy gains on the best clubs is limited.

Since 2016 there have been multiple - largely failed - attempts to turn things around. We've had to hit the reset button far too many times, largely because the threat of relegation prevented longer-term plans being carried through, which had the knock-on effect that the people responsible for implementing these changes have left prematurely (e.g. Sinfield) or been forced out (McDermott, Furner, Agar etc).

Talk of 'forever rebuilds' is unduly pessimistic in my opinion, but likewise we can't expect things to change overnight. The confidence and composure of the first team is fragile unless they are used to performing well most weeks, as Saints are. It's frustrating but also understandable that when we're playing top-class opposition and a series of decisions go against us, this mental fragility comes to the fore.

History shows us that the clubs that have tried to spend their way to the top have largely failed to secure success in SL, so why should Leeds be any different? Simply replacing Prior and Tetevano with the best NRL props we can afford will help but it won't necessarily take us to the level of Saints, at least not straight away. The path to success - however long it takes - surely requires a core of homegrown talented players to come through (often saving us money on the cap until they become internationals), supplemented by a small number of quality signings from outside the club. At the moment we seem to have things the wrong way around - the best players are largely recruited from outside and we need to pay more to retain their services, and younger homegrown players are filling the gaps.

So far I'm cautiously pleased with the impact Smith is having. There's been an improvement in performances, especially with ball in hand, and there's evidence that he's making the right calls on retention, making sure that quality younger players in the system are getting game time. He's mentioned in one of the recent interviews that we can expect some new signings, but perhaps we should be more hopeful about his impact working with the likes of Walters, O'Connor, Gannon etc, as well as those a year or so away from regular first team selection. We're all hurting after a frustrating loss but this slump won't be fully fixed by signings alone. The coming weeks will no doubt be a useful gauge of Smith's talents. Continued performance improvements, both from the team and individuals, with a some good results thrown in amongst the losses, is what we need to see IMO. I don't think we're ready to be routinely beating the top teams and tonking everyone else just yet.

That’s way too sensible for here, get out now!

Re: The never-ending, perpetual, and forever rebuild : Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:10 pm  

Exeter Rhino wrote:

We have to acknowledge that transitions by their nature do not necessarily need to take a fixed period of time, and it takes a lot of vision, hard work and investment to put any team at the top of SL, especially in the salary capped era. No-one knows how long we need.

Like it or not, it's a different world to the Graham Murray era, for example, when a new coach and a bit of canny recruitment turned us into a top team over night. The best SL teams are all spending up to the same cap and the scope for easy gains on the best clubs is limited.

Since 2016 there have been multiple - largely failed - attempts to turn things around. We've had to hit the reset button far too many times, largely because the threat of relegation prevented longer-term plans being carried through, which had the knock-on effect that the people responsible for implementing these changes have left prematurely (e.g. Sinfield) or been forced out (McDermott, Furner, Agar etc).

Talk of 'forever rebuilds' is unduly pessimistic in my opinion, but likewise we can't expect things to change overnight. The confidence and composure of the first team is fragile unless they are used to performing well most weeks, as Saints are. It's frustrating but also understandable that when we're playing top-class opposition and a series of decisions go against us, this mental fragility comes to the fore.

History shows us that the clubs that have tried to spend their way to the top have largely failed to secure success in SL, so why should Leeds be any different? Simply replacing Prior and Tetevano with the best NRL props we can afford will help but it won't necessarily take us to the level of Saints, at least not straight away. The path to success - however long it takes - surely requires a core of homegrown talented players to come through (often saving us money on the cap until they become internationals), supplemented by a small number of quality signings from outside the club. At the moment we seem to have things the wrong way around - the best players are largely recruited from outside and we need to pay more to retain their services, and younger homegrown players are filling the gaps.

So far I'm cautiously pleased with the impact Smith is having. There's been an improvement in performances, especially with ball in hand, and there's evidence that he's making the right calls on retention, making sure that quality younger players in the system are getting game time. He's mentioned in one of the recent interviews that we can expect some new signings, but perhaps we should be more hopeful about his impact working with the likes of Walters, O'Connor, Gannon etc, as well as those a year or so away from regular first team selection. We're all hurting after a frustrating loss but this slump won't be fully fixed by signings alone. The coming weeks will no doubt be a useful gauge of Smith's talents. Continued performance improvements, both from the team and individuals, with a some good results thrown in amongst the losses, is what we need to see IMO. I don't think we're ready to be routinely beating the top teams and tonking everyone else just yet.

Best post i've read on here in a long time.

Re: The never-ending, perpetual, and forever rebuild : Sat Jun 25, 2022 7:42 am  

We can never move forward because the recruitment at the club when it comes to players and coaches has been horrendous. So we're in a constant state of needing to get rid of the players we've just brought in, the need for a major rebuild never stops because the majority of the squad is extremely poor.

Until the team that brings in our players & coaches is sacked or improved, we will continue this never ending cycle.

Re: The never-ending, perpetual, and forever rebuild : Tue Jun 28, 2022 12:07 am  

If we can avoid knee-jerk signings this season that will help a lot. A number of players have been signed in desperate times and then we're stuck with them. Then compounded by barking mad retention of players who have shown time and again they just aren't top flight.

Smith has quickly identified some players he doesn't think are up to it, or at the very least need a rocket to get better - notably the undroppable Sutcliffe and the flaky Dwyer. On the converse he's also quickly signalled which young players he wants to keep.

Obviously the next step is bringing in real quality. Hopefully Smith has more idea with respect to overseas players than anyone else has shown over the past few years. Overseas players shouldn't be borderline first 17 (Thompson) or signed just on reputation (Tetevano and possibly Fusitu'a) - they need to be automatic first choice in the 17 every week and be a lot better than British alternatives, and fill a genuine need.

It will take time but it really is time to start making every signing count.

Re: The never-ending, perpetual, and forever rebuild : Tue Jun 28, 2022 9:58 am  

FlexWheeler wrote:

Because by the time we get one area sorted, another area of the squad will become screwed. If they manage to get the pack sorted in 2 or 3 seasons, then the backline or halfbacks will be a problem.

It really is a bag o' poop.

We haven't brought through a top-quality young player in donkey's years. It could be Newman, but we can't call that yet. Our overseas signings are just relentlessly bad.

We're not going to be a grand final team for the foreseeable future. Indefinitely maybe.

The Lotpod podcast this week points something out again about how we seem to actively devalue players when they arrive at Headingly and vice versa. E.g Sezer was good Fartown but s*ite for us. Hurrell sh*te for us and decent at Saints

We hear about culture being wrong at Leeds but what does that exactly mean?.....can anyone list theml 'culture' failings down? (Genuine request)

Re: The never-ending, perpetual, and forever rebuild : Tue Jun 28, 2022 10:07 am  

Hurrell wasn't sh*te for us. Didn't he make the dream team the first 2 years? He was injured more often last season and has never had the luxury of playing in a team on the front foot most weeks.