Re: Transfer Talk / Rumour thread V4 : Sat May 28, 2022 5:31 pm  

Seth wrote:

Me?!

JP, not famous for his ball handling as I recall…

Re: Transfer Talk / Rumour thread V4 : Sun May 29, 2022 10:27 am  

Think most on here, reckon recruitment has been pretty average for a long time. For Smith to have a decent shot, it needs to improve significantly and some young ones need to become really good players.
To evidence we are not in transition, we have simply declined badly, I cobbled the below together. It only covers regular season games, no play offs, no super or middle 8, no draws and to compensate for
Covid seasons I’ve added the odd win to some teams to balance up number of games played.
From 2016 to 2021, 6 seasons, regular season games won in total.
Saints 104
Wigan. 88
Wire. 84
Cas. 77
Hull FC 75
Catalan 72
Leeds. 66
Salford. 63
Wakey. 58
hudds 53

These numbers don’t look like improving this year. A bit of encouragement can perhaps be taken from how Watson has improved Hudds this year, I was surprised they came bottom.
HKR not included as not in 2017.

Re: Transfer Talk / Rumour thread V4 : Mon May 30, 2022 12:09 am  

I see GH has said we're late with respect to recruitment. Again. This time because of the change of coach. The departures he lists show we need to get moving quickly, but it really is time to start getting this right.

Another legacy of years of garbage is that we've lost whatever edge we had for signing players because we're Leeds - for players interested in winning things we may as well be Salford at the moment. Longer term the best solution is junior development but its hard to see us bringing in enough quality to truly compete next year unless Smith really is an uber coach.

Re: Transfer Talk / Rumour thread V4 : Mon May 30, 2022 12:27 pm  

Why would we trust the same people to get the squad rebuild right this time? We're rebuilding from their previous failure. We're trying to get rid of the deadwood that they brought in. This transitional phase just gets delayed every year because the same people in control continue to make terrible decisions.

Re: Transfer Talk / Rumour thread V4 : Mon May 30, 2022 2:13 pm  

tomlufc wrote:

Why would we trust the same people to get the squad rebuild right this time? We're rebuilding from their previous failure. We're trying to get rid of the deadwood that they brought in. This transitional phase just gets delayed every year because the same people in control continue to make terrible decisions.

Sinfield has left the club.

Re: Transfer Talk / Rumour thread V4 : Mon May 30, 2022 2:32 pm  

Would anyone take a punt on Mike Cooper. Looks to be leaving Wire next season, and still a very decent SL prop. I dare say he'd be on half the salary of Tetevano!

Re: Transfer Talk / Rumour thread V4 : Mon May 30, 2022 3:19 pm  

The Ghost of '99 wrote:

Sinfield has left the club.

Do you really think GH isn't still making player decisions when he's travelling around Australia, hiring the coach?

Re: Transfer Talk / Rumour thread V4 : Mon May 30, 2022 5:00 pm  

I would like or should I say hope Smith is making the decisions on player retention and recruitment.
If he isn`t then we are going to be in the same mess for a very long time.
Sinfield in my opinion had far too much say in that department and GH either trusted his decision making or thought the same.
Fingers crossed Smith took the job on the basis he chooses.

Re: Transfer Talk / Rumour thread V4 : Mon May 30, 2022 5:47 pm  

exiledrhino wrote:

Would anyone take a punt on Mike Cooper. Looks to be leaving Wire next season, and still a very decent SL prop. I dare say he'd be on half the salary of Tetevano!

Yes and I think that could happen. Also possibly Hudds.

Re: Transfer Talk / Rumour thread V4 : Mon May 30, 2022 8:12 pm  

tomlufc wrote:

Do you really think GH isn't still making player decisions when he's travelling around Australia, hiring the coach?

This isn't difficult: you're talking about now, Sinfield isn't here any more. When he was he was delegated quite an amount of authority in building the current squad, alongside Agar.