Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 10:12 am  

Tarquin Fuego wrote:

Could Uncle Tony give the Radiator mascot a go at Prop next week ?
Big unit !

We can’t afford the electricity bill.

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 10:17 am  

Well my thoughts on it all, after calming down...
That was embarrassing, pathetic, gutless to say a few
Players don't care, no passion from the players behind the sticks, nobody talking...no wait, nobody shouting orders , trying to get each other fired up , just show something. Defence, what defence, attack was clueless!
they still get paid even after that.

I think AP needs to come out and needs to tell us what is REALLY going on at the club as it seems rotten to the core and it's falling into a state of disrepair very quickly.
The fans which are this club deserve better, deserve answers, deserve a voice!
There needs to be a fans forum so the fans can ask questions and get some answers to what has happened to the club and what is being done to change it. As it stands, nobody seems to know what to do at the club. That's from the top all the way down to the players.

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 10:45 am  

Fundamentals. I sometimes think when a team is struggling why don’t coaches just focus on these things. You’d accept a fairly conservative game plan if it meant the starting point of

-play people in the positions they are best in. Hookers at hooker, props at prop etc. don’t overthink it
- kick well, chase hard and ask teams to go 100 metres
- be as fit as possible
- don’t cut corners or try and be clever for penalties
- small effort areas. Forming scrums quickly, celebrating small wins, kick pressure etc

Sounds so basic, but I just don’t see you lot doing much of this at the moment. What’s happening on the training pitch every week? What’s the plan? I think most can accept getting beat but if your senior players cba to do the above then it’s a coaching issue. I think sometimes as fans you can over complicate what is happening and think bigger picture but there’s a lot of low hanging fruit which can be dealt with immediately that just isn’t happening

[Mild Rover]

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 10:56 am  

Smith is (or at least has been) a good coach. He’ll make hay while the sun shines as well as anybody. But has he ever really changed the weather, or was it largely right time, right place? Inheriting a golden generation entering its prime at Leeds, and all that money and the low bar set by Cullen at Warrington.

In fairness not many have made much of an impact on SL’s outcome over the last 20 years. I doubt Peet is a massively better coach than Andy Last. If Sandercock or Gentle had got a gig at Saints, they’d have likely taken them to Grand Finals. The cast changes but the storyline stays pretty much the same.

It isn’t that you need an experienced coach with a proven track record or a young one with fresh ideas. The problem is that you’re a bit skint.

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 10:59 am  

We’ve been in the doldrums for 7 years, since 2018. Recruitment has, as others have said numerous times, shambolic. We’ve had young apprentice coaches and cried out for an established senior coach, we’ve got one. He was brought in to sort out the malaise that surrounds the whole club from top, AP, to bottom. He binned off 12 players last season and brought in 8, plus bloodied academy players. He’s 5 games into his second season and we’re probably more shambolic as a club than ever. No matter what AP says about blow out scores, it happened again yesterday and is going to happen numerous times again this season. I’ve been around FC for nigh on 60 years, I’ve said it before on here, this is the worst team I’ve ever seeing in Black and White. Fans have been frustrated with it for years, I saw 2 fans from the East Stand throw there replica shirts onto the pitch last season in disgust. I personally see yesterday’s debacle as a watershed, the frustration and anger was palpable all around the ground. I believe that this season will be the last that a lot of pass holders renew. I also believe that we heard the first death knell for our club. For his own reasons and without opening up to the fan base AP has disenfranchised us, I personally, as you can probably discern from this post, am seriously thinking of calling it a day, it’s not just down to our problems but the wider RFL problem. The disciplinary system is an absolute nightmare, the IMG plans though laudable will not work because it’s down to owners ratifying it. Super League needs to breakaway from the RFL but that would probably lead to the demise of most of the lower league teams, and become an amateur sport again. Wigan, Saints, Catalan, Leeds (again) and probably Wire will be the leading lights for untold seasons to come because it’s purely down to wealth, Hudds. are the anomaly to the saying you buy success. The salary cap was brought in to create a level playing field but at the end of the day it’s all down to dosh, Dobbins may well rise up to join the elite but dodgy dealers abound in East Hull, do well to remember the sale of Craven Park and the rebuild on Preston Road that led to there almost demise. Is it a Hull thing???? This isn’t a kne jerk reaction but one that has brewed for the last 4 seasons with me. I said to my wife at the final whistle,”I’m bloody sick of it” My dad walked away from the club in the seventies after following FC for 40 years but still listened to the commentary, bless him. The new tv deal makes it even easier for fans to stay away. I’ve calmed down now, rant over, as a true Black n White, there’s always jam tomorrow but the clubs running out of bread.

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 11:37 am  

Dont know thought after Cats game I could see some improvements but yesterdays performance was appalling with props just passing the ball. This to me seems like the players wanting the coach to be gone. Granted we have not got a team of worldbeaters but they are quite capable of competing in most games, Smith certainly seems to have lost the dressing room but next game at Huddersfield will show. Another abject performance next week and Smith will be gone.

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 12:04 pm  

even in the cats and wire games where we competed,we still dont score enough points,until we get 2 proper halfbacks and dispense with this 2 hooker at 6 and 7 position ,i see no improvement in our attack.in all the super league and nrl games im watching ,no team has 2 hookers playing in the halfs.totally ludicrous.

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 1:25 pm  

mean_machine wrote:

Fundamentals. I sometimes think when a team is struggling why don’t coaches just focus on these things. You’d accept a fairly conservative game plan if it meant the starting point of

-play people in the positions they are best in. Hookers at hooker, props at prop etc. don’t overthink it
- kick well, chase hard and ask teams to go 100 metres
- be as fit as possible
- don’t cut corners or try and be clever for penalties
- small effort areas. Forming scrums quickly, celebrating small wins, kick pressure etc

Sounds so basic, but I just don’t see you lot doing much of this at the moment. What’s happening on the training pitch every week? What’s the plan? I think most can accept getting beat but if your senior players cba to do the above then it’s a coaching issue. I think sometimes as fans you can over complicate what is happening and think bigger picture but there’s a lot of low hanging fruit which can be dealt with immediately that just isn’t happening

I made this same point last night on the game thread.

When it's not going very well, go back to basics and start afresh from there. It is a truism in all sports, be they individual or team. Keep it simple, keep it direct, keep it straightforward.

Even if you are not the best in your sport, there are two aspects that everyone can work on and improve: Fitness and organization. If we could see positive indicators within our team that those two aspects were being addressed then there wouldn't be half the amount of criticism being aimed Smith's way that there is today.

The fact that we can't see even the basics being carried out to an acceptable level (in fact they would appear to be getting worse judged on the season so far) has to be the responsibility of Smith, and him alone. We would excuse/accept the fact that there is simply a lack of quality within the playing squad if this was to be the case, but fitness, organization, commitment and desire have nothing to do with being a world-class player.

Smith's position this afternoon looks, to me, the same as Peter Gentle the day after the Huddersfield play-off humiliation, untenable. I've tried to back him, given his track record as an experienced coach, wanting him to succeed, to turn our club around, I've tried to search for positives (even small ones) as I'm not someone who believes that sacking your coach/manager every time you hit a bump in the road is a way to find stability, but even I ran out of patience during yesterday's shambolic first-half.

My feelings about Smith this afternoon are exactly the same as I felt about Gentle after that Huddersfield game; he looks a busted flush I'm afraid. Whether replacing him (and with who?) will change matters (given the low-level squad we will still have) I have no idea, but this current situation simply cannot be allowed to continue or drift along aimlessly, we could disappear for good.

Reading this forum today, it's difficult to escape the feeling that something fundamental snapped with the faithful yesterday afternoon. The final straw being thrown in the bin. It's not even a saviour we are looking for, just someone to instil some pride and commitment into proceedings, to give us back a club to believe in once more, as we have all believed in for a large proportion of our lives (whatever our different ages, some older than others). We have reached the point of no return. We need a change, but I fear it might not be coming.

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 1:38 pm  

Smith must be on a very thin piece of ice. But my main problem is how many times can players throw the coach under the bus then just carry on. It's every year with hull . It's a never ending circle. Smith should have the bottle to drop those not performing which would be a lot. But at least it would show who's boss. For me the squad he picks for Huddersfield will say a lot.Our forwards yesterday where awful. Since I've been watching rugby if your forwards are getting mullered you won't win a match. Plus Smiths excuses are wearing thin. I'd have said that display is not acceptable there in training Sunday Some will be dropped next week the others are on last chance saloon.

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 2:15 pm  

I think Smith will only walk. I don't see him being sacked.
The reason I say this is, I remember AP saying "he will be the last coach I hire" doesn't sound like someone who will be sacking the coach.

Whether that was AP saying, no matter what smith is staying or was he saying I'll be gone soon so TS can take us up until then.

As I've already said,.I don't see the point in sacking TS, doesn't seem to matter who the coach is, it's always the same old stuff.
Maybe if we had TS after ladders, with that type of squad and money to spend, he would've taken us forward. But being so under the cap etc hence bringing in players that aren't good enough