'Zero fight, culture or belief': Leeds Rhinos fans angry after Trinity loss, but split on coach Rohan Smith

It was Rhinos’ second loss in as many matches to a bottom-two team and their sixth from the past seven Betfred Super League and Challenge Cup games.

Our jury agree recent results and performances are not acceptable, but opinions differ on the future of coach Rohan Smith.

BECKY OXLEY

Well, what can I say about Sunday’s game? I’m always an optimist, but that has been waning over the last few weeks.

I even said to my mum before kick off Wakey were going to beat us. It’s hard to put a defeat like that into words.

We were playing a team that included three debutants, had numerous injuries and are bottom of the table, with no wins behind them before Sunday.

Local derbies are always interesting and anyone’s, but Leeds were error-strewn and even with Wakey down to 12 men for most of the second half we couldn’t capitalise.

We’ve lost five out of our last six and I hate to say it, but we need to change something and fast.

I’m not expecting to win the league every season, but we can’t continue like we are. It has been the same week-in, week-out recently and reading social media it’s not just me thinking this way.

We have a week off this coming weekend for the Challenge Cup and then we play Huddersfield at home.

We need to work on the issues and knuckle down together and change things. What is wrong at the moment, only the Rhinos camp truly know, but it would be good to start getting some points on the board and getting morale throughout the club back up.

IAIN SHARP

If it wasn’t before, Leeds wilting in the heat to a 12 man, winless Wakefield side, could well be deemed as a full-scale crisis looming at Headingley.

There is a growing clamour to dismiss coach Rohan Smith, but what many fail to consider is who exactly would you replace him with if you did sack him?

Appointing a new coach at the end of a season is bad enough, doing it mid-season with a limited pool to appoint from is an utter nightmare.

The further case for the prosecution is a lack of green shoots of recovery, however I doubt Wayne Bennett himself would be able to get much more out of the players available last weekend. However, one man who did quickly turn around a squad was the late, great

Graham Murray.

Maybe it is time to blood players like Luke Hooley or Jack Sinfield, playing them on a regular basis and in their recognised positions, given that they can’t do much worse.

Many cite recruitment, but out of the Leeds players released last season, only two are playing in a side placed higher in the table than Leeds currently are - Zak Hardaker and Tom Briscoe at Leigh.

With the Cup exit, we at least have some breathing space to lick our wounds, regroup and go again in two weeks’ time.

TOM GOLDSWORTHY

In the space of two weekends, Leeds have lost to the two worst teams in the Super League and now there’s a serious question of where do we go from here?

Once again, there was no effort, fight or passion as we somehow put in a worse performance at Wakefield than we did against Castleford, something I did not think was possible.

No matter where you stand on Rohan Smith as a coach, he is not the one out there making stupid errors week after week.

The fact Wakefield had a host of players out, no fit half backs and were down to 12 men on the day, but still managed to squeeze a win out of us is just embarrassing.

The lack of a clear leader in the team is killing us, we are crying out for a player to grab this team by the throat and drag us to victories.

The experiment was a nice idea in principle with the leadership group, but it just has not worked. It is time the club hold their hands up, admit it was an error and give the armband to someone on a full-time basis, who I think should be Cameron Smith.

I think it is vital the club stick by Rohan Smith. Otherwise we are stuck in this horrible cycle where we are sacking coaches on a yearly basis after a few bad results, like we have done from Dave Furner to Richard Agar and then Richard Agar to Rohan Smith. Things have to change sooner rather than later, but I do not think changing the coach will alter anything in the long term.

SAM BROCKSOM

Dreadful. Utterly dreadful. There is no spirit in the Leeds Rhinos club anymore. Yes, the likes of Kevin Sinfield, Jamie Peacock and Rob Burrow were quite literally generational, but since then there has been no passion for the badge.

We have gone from those legends to the dross we have now. Zero fight, zero culture, zero belief from the fans or players at this point.

Hull KR have two Rhinos legends in their coaching ranks in Brett Delaney and Danny McGuire. Yet we are left with Rohan Smith, a man who seems to have no clue what position his players are best in and Scott Grix, who has no affiliation with the club whatsoever and no top-flight coaching experience.

We lost JJB from the backroom team last year and he was the last person involved to have any idea what it means to put on a Rhinos shirt.

The whole club is rotten. The attitude stinks. Something needs to change in the next two weeks. I don’t know if that will happen as it means the chief executive Gary Hetherington has to actually do something for once, but I expect a spirited and passionate performance at home against Huddersfield in our next game.

JOSH JACKSON

Well, Sunday’s result has well and truly killed off our season.

It was written in the stars for Wakefield to get their first win of the season against us. Unfortunately, we have a gutless group at the moment and that is a real worry for the club. Questions need to be answered as soon as possible, or this club is going to continue going backwards.

Wakefield showed more heart and more fight and that’s all it takes to beat us. No leaders, no organisation and a coach who continues to make extremely strange decisions.

I think the reaction of our fans on social media says it all, everyone has lost faith in Rohan Smith, who everybody was so confident about taking us back to where we belong. Instead, we have gone backwards. It is a real worrying time for our great club.

Personally, I think this season is a write-off. I think we need to make key decisions about preparing for next year, bringing in new players and letting go those who are out of contract, barring maybe one or two.