Re: Luke Gale : Wed Apr 13, 2022 2:30 pm  

Zoo Zoo Boom wrote:

Maybe we should have - hindsight is a great thing

Maybe we should have kept Furner and got rid of JJB?

At the end of the day, fans have no idea what is going on in the dressing room, and any insights we do get are going to be partial, biased, or clouded by hindsight. Was Furner a terrible man-manager, or (and?) was he being undermined by JJB? We're probably not going to learn more until the club releases 'As Good As It Gets 2(022): Another False Dawn Breaks Over Headingley'.

Despite our reservations, Agar seemed to be taking the team in the right direction - albeit slower that we would have liked - seemingly recruiting well for 2022, and then in a matter of weeks he was toast. The situation we are in now is potentially worse than when Furner left - at least in terms of our league position. The jury's out on the quality of our squad, at least missing a handful of higher calibre injured players.

Agar did a good job re-building the confidence of key players when he took over. But it's clear now that Agar has gone the confidence is shot to pieces again (ball in hand especially), and we're really missing leadership - again. The fragility of the team's collective mentality does seem to underline that meaningful lessons were not learned in the last few years - particularly in terms of coaching and conditioning, and on-field leadership and the balance of the team.

As for recruitment, what the hell has GH been playing at? Even in the days from 1997 - 2003 we unearthed plenty of quality signings alongside the duds. Our spine always seems to have 1-2 permanently injured players; we must have the slowest and least threatening backline in SL (especially when Newman is out); and the pack is the most over-rated since we last heard that England were capable of over-powering the Aussies up-front in a test-match. Another prop would make a difference but it sometimes feels like it is going to take someone of Walmsley quality to make them look good again. With Oledski, Prior and Tetevano all fit we should be able to live with most other SL clubs - if not then one or more of those players is not putting the required effort in, or injured.

Let's see what JJB manages in the interim. We keep hearing about how he bleeds blue and amber when cut open, but this applies to any committed Leeds fan - and of course GH is not stupid enough to offer any of us the job. If we get a few players back this team ought to be capable of bouncing back and stringing a few wins together - if not, JJB's position ought to be on the line with those of the players who are not delivering on the field.

Re: Luke Gale : Wed Apr 13, 2022 3:09 pm  

I think everything you've said is valid. While we have some quality players its genuinely hard to understand how we could be spending at the cap when you compare our squad with Sts. Its quite shocking how unbalanced and generally just naff so much of our squad is.

Rebuilding under the cap is really hard. Right now the priority is a prop or two. But if/when that happens we'll see that the problem is our threequarters, then halfbacks, then fullback, then hooker (in whatever order). There are problems everywhere.

Assuming we can stay up this year, as well as focusing on the obvious quality gaps we need to look at getting rid of all the "squad" players who have shown time and again that they aren't good enough to be picked regularly. We need to start being ruthless (as GH was from 1997) and make youth development an absolute priority so we can start to have a production line of quality kids. That means not just signing the best kids but putting time and money into developing them. Its staggering that we seemingly have almost no reserves (outside of the usual rotation of non-entities) putting real selection pressure onto such a dire first team.

The injuries issue is a weird one. We keep hearing its just bad luck, and some injuries obviously are, but we seem to have had consistently more bad luck than most clubs for several years. Is poor general fitness causing our players to come down with more injuries? I have no idea, but its really odd if there's not some systemic problem.

Re: Luke Gale : Wed Apr 13, 2022 3:47 pm  

Exeter Rhino wrote:

Maybe we should have kept Furner and got rid of JJB?

At the end of the day, fans have no idea what is going on in the dressing room, and any insights we do get are going to be partial, biased, or clouded by hindsight. Was Furner a terrible man-manager, or (and?) was he being undermined by JJB? We're probably not going to learn more until the club releases 'As Good As It Gets 2(022): Another False Dawn Breaks Over Headingley'.

Despite our reservations, Agar seemed to be taking the team in the right direction - albeit slower that we would have liked - seemingly recruiting well for 2022, and then in a matter of weeks he was toast. The situation we are in now is potentially worse than when Furner left - at least in terms of our league position. The jury's out on the quality of our squad, at least missing a handful of higher calibre injured players.

Agar did a good job re-building the confidence of key players when he took over. But it's clear now that Agar has gone the confidence is shot to pieces again (ball in hand especially), and we're really missing leadership - again. The fragility of the team's collective mentality does seem to underline that meaningful lessons were not learned in the last few years - particularly in terms of coaching and conditioning, and on-field leadership and the balance of the team.

As for recruitment, what the hell has GH been playing at? Even in the days from 1997 - 2003 we unearthed plenty of quality signings alongside the duds. Our spine always seems to have 1-2 permanently injured players; we must have the slowest and least threatening backline in SL (especially when Newman is out); and the pack is the most over-rated since we last heard that England were capable of over-powering the Aussies up-front in a test-match. Another prop would make a difference but it sometimes feels like it is going to take someone of Walmsley quality to make them look good again. With Oledski, Prior and Tetevano all fit we should be able to live with most other SL clubs - if not then one or more of those players is not putting the required effort in, or injured.

Let's see what JJB manages in the interim. We keep hearing about how he bleeds blue and amber when cut open, but this applies to any committed Leeds fan - and of course GH is not stupid enough to offer any of us the job. If we get a few players back this team ought to be capable of bouncing back and stringing a few wins together - if not, JJB's position ought to be on the line with those of the players who are not delivering on the field.

Re: Luke Gale : Wed Apr 13, 2022 8:43 pm  

Yeah the above posts are of staggeringly good insight and depth. Good on the posters.
I thought it was interesting how JJB was going on about how good certain players look on stats graph’s. It’s absolutely crazy how this type of analysis seems more important than exciting, off the cuff rugby….

Re: Luke Gale : Wed Apr 13, 2022 9:08 pm  

I don't get the 'Agar was leading us in the right direction' he lead us here and confidence was shot on his watch. Its a mess and Agar oversaw it whether it was GH job to move him on earlier or not. Did he expect 'the right coach to just knock on the door, is this more misplaced leeds ego.

Re: Luke Gale : Thu Apr 14, 2022 2:28 am  

Zoo Zoo Boom wrote:

He was replaced

By who? Sezer and Austin was already at the club and was Lui and McLelland's replacements. We lost 3 halves and signed 2. Total mis-management.

Re: Luke Gale : Fri Apr 15, 2022 6:07 pm  

in today's games 34 year old Ryan Hall was great as was Matt Parcell, Galey had a complete nightmare game again ! Konnie was very good, Singo was very average. Even Mitch Garbutt looked ok the other night compared to some of our forwards

Re: Luke Gale : Sat Apr 16, 2022 10:58 am  

gym bunny 100 wrote:

in today's games 34 year old Ryan Hall was great as was Matt Parcell, Galey had a complete nightmare game again ! Konnie was very good, Singo was very average. Even Mitch Garbutt looked ok the other night compared to some of our forwards

Konrad is looking OK because hes in a team which can cope with his bad points, he is a liability in defence just look atvtgat first break from Wigan yesterday

It was s great move for him and im pleased to see him enjoying his rugby again.

By the way Gale was atrocious for FC Hull look better with lovedua at 7

Re: Luke Gale : Sat Apr 16, 2022 12:43 pm  

christopher wrote:

Konrad is looking OK because hes in a team which can cope with his bad points, he is a liability in defence just look atvtgat first break from Wigan yesterday

It was s great move for him and im pleased to see him enjoying his rugby again.

By the way Gale was atrocious for FC Hull look better with lovedua at 7

Yeah Konnie a liability. That’s why he defended fine Vs Latrell Mitchell for Tonga. Our backs are such good defenders too, he wouldn’t get a look in for us now……

Re: Luke Gale : Sat Apr 16, 2022 1:28 pm  

Shabino wrote:

Yeah Konnie a liability. That’s why he defended fine Vs Latrell Mitchell for Tonga. Our backs are such good defenders too, he wouldn’t get a look in for us now……

Stop being so reactionary shabs.

Ive stated numerous times i wanted Konrad to stay but to deny he has defensive frailties is to deny the reality of it.

Wether our centres have the same frailties is irrelevant other than the fact our team isn’t good enough yo compensate like the saints team.