Trouble at t'mill?

[V02]

On 08/09/2023 at 13:36, RBKnight said:

I only asked this question because we have two teenage ex-Leeds players with York Knights (Oli Field and Levi Edwards) who opted out of Leeds this season to go a Championship side, rather than just going out on loan. 

I'm not making any special claim on these two players, but they had obviously got the signal quite early that they were well down the pecking order amongst Leeds juniors. I would expect players rated higher than them to be very good prospects, and to be knocking on the door for 1st team appearances. How is this apparent embarrassment of riches manifesting itself in the Rhinos senior squad ?

Edwards and Field were behind players younger than them. If they wanted to play first team rugby instead then it's right to let them leave.

Edwards has played 4 games this year. The signals given to them seem accurate with that in mind.

[RBKnight]

1 hour ago, V02 said:

Edwards and Field were behind players younger than them. If they wanted to play first team rugby instead then it's right to let them leave.

Edwards has played 4 games this year. The signals given to them seem accurate with that in mind.

I said in my original post that I was not making special clams for Field and Edwards (Edwards suffered an ACL injury early this reason, hence his lack of appearances).My question for Leeds fans was how well they thought they were managing the cream of West Yorkshire talent that comes through the club.

Leeds have just been tonked 50-0 at home. Your reaction seems to be "nothing to see here". Really ?

[Tommygilf]

38 minutes ago, RBKnight said:

I said in my original post that I was not making special clams for Field and Edwards (Edwards suffered an ACL injury early this reason, hence his lack of appearances).My question for Leeds fans was how well they thought they were managing the cream of West Yorkshire talent that comes through the club.

Leeds have just been tonked 50-0 at home. Your reaction seems to be "nothing to see here". Really ?

Agreed. Leeds seem to be immensely capable of drawing in the best talent available to them from wherever frankly, but from there it seems so disjointed. 

Inevitably these players leave for other clubs and have decent stints as (semi)pro RL players, but it does rather seem that the Rhinos rely on who you know not what.

[Gates1]

Greg Eden to Feath, still quality if he can avoid injuries, but seems to be a growing if these days.

[ghost crayfish]

Does anyone know anymore about why Blake Austin left? Seems weird a bloke like him would leave a club mid-year that is competing for a finals spot, to go to a cellar dweller getting smashed every week. The wheels hadn't fallen off then, but on top of Leeming's earlier departure, it seems the coach is putting some big name players offside - perhaps for the right reasons to change culture, who knows? But doesn't seem to have made any immediate improvements!

[Chrispmartha]

21 minutes ago, ghost crayfish said:

Does anyone know anymore about why Blake Austin left? Seems weird a bloke like him would leave a club mid-year that is competing for a finals spot, to go to a cellar dweller getting smashed every week. The wheels hadn't fallen off then, but on top of Leeming's earlier departure, it seems the coach is putting some big name players offside - perhaps for the right reasons to change culture, who knows? But doesn't seem to have made any immediate improvements!

Details are sketchy but the narrative from Austin is that his mate Gareth Widdop asked him to go help them out! The narrative from Leeds is that because they hadn’t offered him a deal Austin wanted to go to try get a deal with them for next year and Leeds were happy for him to do that.

I suspect theres a bit more to it.

[M j M]

I'd assumed Cas had offered him a deal for next year and that was contingent on them being in SL. Best way to ensure that was to get there ASAP.

[Hopie]

My understanding is that Leeds didn't want to talk to players who were out of contract about next year until the end of the season. So those who are leaving had no offer from Leeds for next year, they didn't know if they would get one at the end of the year, nor how much any offer might be.

That doesn't leave you with much to compare to offers from elsewhere, or much to go on if you are saying I'd like to stay but I need to know how much I am earning next year. I could see how you would be annoyed about that.

What if he waited and got no offer? What if he waited and got a really low offer and every other team has their squad filled and contracts signed?  I'd assumed that's why he was going on TV and answering questions honestly about his future, because he felt he wasn't getting a fair go and needed a more certain future, which I could understand. 

 

 

[Chrispmartha]

31 minutes ago, Hopie said:

My understanding is that Leeds didn't want to talk to players who were out of contract about next year until the end of the season. So those who are leaving had no offer from Leeds for next year, they didn't know if they would get one at the end of the year, nor how much any offer might be.

That doesn't leave you with much to compare to offers from elsewhere, or much to go on if you are saying I'd like to stay but I need to know how much I am earning next year. I could see how you would be annoyed about that.

What if he waited and got no offer? What if he waited and got a really low offer and every other team has their squad filled and contracts signed?  I'd assumed that's why he was going on TV and answering questions honestly about his future, because he felt he wasn't getting a fair go and needed a more certain future, which I could understand. 

 

 

But like Sezer and the other off contract players he was welcome to explore other opportunities, Leeds aren’t under any obligation to offer the players contracts at a specific time, as long as they say they can explore their other options they aren’t doing anything wrong, it happens at a lot of clubs.

[Tommygilf]

48 minutes ago, Chrispmartha said:

But like Sezer and the other off contract players he was welcome to explore other opportunities, Leeds aren’t under any obligation to offer the players contracts at a specific time, as long as they say they can explore their other options they aren’t doing anything wrong, it happens at a lot of clubs.

Indeed, but it has meant losing our only fit recognised senior half mid season at a time when he was playing rather well. That doesn't happen at a lot of clubs.

[Damien]

28 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Indeed, but it has meant losing our only fit recognised senior half mid season at a time when he was playing rather well. That doesn't happen at a lot of clubs.

It shows little confidence in the players in question. While it's easy to say it should motovate them in reality it does quite the opposite. 

[LeeF]

2 hours ago, Hopie said:

My understanding is that Leeds didn't want to talk to players who were out of contract about next year until the end of the season. So those who are leaving had no offer from Leeds for next year, they didn't know if they would get one at the end of the year, nor how much any offer might be.

That doesn't leave you with much to compare to offers from elsewhere, or much to go on if you are saying I'd like to stay but I need to know how much I am earning next year. I could see how you would be annoyed about that.

What if he waited and got no offer? What if he waited and got a really low offer and every other team has their squad filled and contracts signed?  I'd assumed that's why he was going on TV and answering questions honestly about his future, because he felt he wasn't getting a fair go and needed a more certain future, which I could understand. 

 

 

If he had been playing well for all his time at the club then a decent contract would have been offered at an early date. Austin had a handful of good games but quite a few poor ones. He really only started playing when Leeds offered him a year’s extension. He wanted more

[LeeF]

50 minutes ago, Damien said:

It shows little confidence in the players in question. While it's easy to say it should motovate them in reality it does quite the opposite. 

Or maybe they didn’t really want him or Sezer next year?

[Damien]

2 minutes ago, LeeF said:

Or maybe they didn’t really want him or Sezer next year?

That's the obvious interpretation for a player, hence my comment.

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

3 hours ago, Hopie said:

My understanding is that Leeds didn't want to talk to players who were out of contract about next year until the end of the season. So those who are leaving had no offer from Leeds for next year, they didn't know if they would get one at the end of the year, nor how much any offer might be.

That doesn't leave you with much to compare to offers from elsewhere, or much to go on if you are saying I'd like to stay but I need to know how much I am earning next year. I could see how you would be annoyed about that.

What if he waited and got no offer? What if he waited and got a really low offer and every other team has their squad filled and contracts signed?  I'd assumed that's why he was going on TV and answering questions honestly about his future, because he felt he wasn't getting a fair go and needed a more certain future, which I could understand. 

 

 

I think the above is the most likely scenario 

Leeds lose a quality half and one of thier best players because Gary H wanted his own way 

Hasn't worked out well for Leeds and it will continue 

Apologists for GH will now accuse me of naivety....meanwhile Rugby league giant Leeds ship 100 plus unanswered points (or worse just rely with a lol emoji as they have no actual riposte)

Whatever they are doing with recruitment and players is not working any where near as well as other clubs 

It will now hit the bottom line when memberships abd corporate are hit for 2024

Edited September 19, 2023 by Bedfordshire Bronco

[Chrispmartha]

29 minutes ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

 

Leeds lose a quality half and one of thier best players because Gary H wanted his own way 

 

I'm not sure what you mean by this? both Austin and GH have said that it was Austin who initiated the move.

Wanted his own way how?

[M j M]

48 minutes ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

I think the above is the most likely scenario 

Leeds lose a quality half and one of thier best players because Gary H wanted his own way 

Hasn't worked out well for Leeds and it will continue 

Apologists for GH will now accuse me of naivety....meanwhile Rugby league giant Leeds ship 100 plus unanswered points (or worse just rely with a lol emoji as they have no actual riposte)

Whatever they are doing with recruitment and players is not working any where near as well as other clubs 

It will now hit the bottom line when memberships abd corporate are hit for 2024

I'll ignore the rest of this mess of a post but let's take a look at your wishful about the Leeds corporate market. The Big Corporates that Leeds are very strong in are very resilient and very bought into the long term. It'll take more than a couple of poor first team results to seriously undermine that. Smaller corporates/owner managed businesses may behave more like regular fans but your your doom mongering is likely to be largely misplaced there too.

[Tommygilf]

39 minutes ago, Chrispmartha said:

I'm not sure what you mean by this? both Austin and GH have said that it was Austin who initiated the move.

Wanted his own way how?

And GH has said it was Rohan Smith who didn't want to make a decision till the end of the season

[Tommygilf]

5 hours ago, Damien said:

It shows little confidence in the players in question. While it's easy to say it should motovate them in reality it does quite the opposite. 

Like a lot of Mr 'Smith's "ideas"*, could be good in theory, doesn't work in practice.

For example from this season:

Having no captain and just a "leadership group" (look at the impact on the leadership and accountability in the squad from that).

Getting rid of the captain chosen by the players themselves, ignominiously, midseason.

Believing that if we didn't slow down the opposition rucks, the refs wouldn't allow them to slow down ours. Complaining that the rules are then correctly applied.

Believing that having no linespeed in defence will somehow work. 

Morgan Gannon, one of the best young back rowers in England, as a 6. 

Whatever is going on in the backroom coaching and physio department.

Several of these points have changed mid season, Smith seems to have been selected as Smith's captain. We have linespeed in defence now too and we don't get endless complaints about the ruck in this country not being the ruck in Australia. Sadly they are all too late to really impact our season.

*other people may call them fantasies or delusions etc.

[Tommygilf]

Luke Hooley to Cas.

[LeeF]

4 hours ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

I think the above is the most likely scenario 

Leeds lose a quality half and one of thier best players because Gary H wanted his own way 

Hasn't worked out well for Leeds and it will continue 

Apologists for GH will now accuse me of naivety....meanwhile Rugby league giant Leeds ship 100 plus unanswered points (or worse just rely with a lol emoji as they have no actual riposte)

Whatever they are doing with recruitment and players is not working any where near as well as other clubs 

It will now hit the bottom line when memberships abd corporate are hit for 2024

Which quality half have Leeds lost? Definitely not Sezer who did nothing all season nor Austin who had the occasional match he turned up for and then spat the dummy out. 

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

4 hours ago, Chrispmartha said:

I'm not sure what you mean by this? both Austin and GH have said that it was Austin who initiated the move.

Wanted his own way how?

They made him wait until end of season for a new contract.....another club was prepared to give him one before the end 

Why?

[Tommygilf]

3 minutes ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

They made him wait until end of season for a new contract.....another club was prepared to give him one before the end 

Why?

According to GH, that is what Rohan Smith wanted to do.

[Chrispmartha]

20 minutes ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

They made him wait until end of season for a new contract.....another club was prepared to give him one before the end 

Why?

Why should they have given him a contract mid season if they weren’t sure they wanted to keep him?

Blake could have sorted himself another deal elsewhere from May

 

youll notice quite a few clubs now announcing players leaving that they haven’t renewed their contracts, what’s the difference?

Edited September 19, 2023 by Chrispmartha

[bobbruce]

19 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

According to GH, that is what Rohan Smith wanted to do.

My take on that is if Leeds were honest with  him and said he wasn’t getting a contract. He would’ve seen his contract out like most players do. It’s almost like the uncertainty about his future made him bring the situation to ahead so he could get himself sorted.