YEP Jury: Dave Furner’s sacking came as a real shock – he deserved more time at Leeds Rhinos

KATIE BURROWS

I know everyone won’t feel the same way, but I was shocked and saddened to hear that Dave Furner had been sacked as Leeds Rhinos head coach on Tuesday morning.

While we are a long way from where we need to be in terms of attitude and performance, this isn’t the worst I’ve seen us play, and I don’t believe Furner is solely to blame for our current situation.

For me, our next coaching appointment needs to be someone with experience of coaching (and winning) at the highest level.

I’ve heard rumours that Shaun Wane is interested in the role and, personally, I don’t think he is the right fit for Leeds. Whoever the powers that be decide is the man for the job, I hope he will be given more time than Furner.

This weekend, we take a break from Super League and continue our run in this year’s Challenge Cup, with a visit to Bradford Bulls.

Given this week’s events, I’d like to see us field as full strength a team as possible to prove that we are not destined for the Championship just yet.

LUKE CROSSFIELD

I am shocked with the decision to sack David Furner.

The performances have not been improving and I understand that side of it, however I feel Furner needed more time. We are in a transition period at the moment and it is not going to be sorted overnight.

Getting the right coach in is crucial especially with the promising players coming through our academy.

It was another disappointing performance at Salford especially in defence.

Turning up when the game was over as a contest is not good enough.

It been a long five-year wait to see us play Bradford Bulls in a competitive fixture.

Their players will certainly be up for it as they will see it as a huge chance to impress in front of the TV cameras.

I have been impressed with Ethan Ryan over the past couple of years and he is a great finisher on the wing. Jordan Lilley will have a huge chip on his shoulder and will be aiming to impress.

I don’t expect this to be easy especially with what has happened.

ANDREW SUTCLIFFE

Well no-one saw the news on Tuesday morning coming. I was genuinely surprised by the sacking of David Furner.

As it’s been commented before, we are a team in transition and bedding in under a new coach.

However we are a results-based industry and the facts are clear, we’re third bottom of Super League having only won only four league games all season, which is not good enough.

Can all the blame be pointed at the coach? No, because it’s not him who misses tackles or throws a poor pass.

I think the players need to look at themselves as being responsible for where they are at the moment.

The Salford game was the fourth in two weeks and I think it showed. Jackson Hastings and Robert Lui showed us what we’re missing from our half-backs in terms of controlling the game. Again goalline defence was poor and needs addressing quickly.

Onto the Challenge Cup this week and to renew our battle against Bradford. It’s been a long time since we’ve been to Odsal and no doubt they’ll be loving our current predicament.

OLIVER HAWKHEAD

The Salford game was a disappointing performance considering our results over the Easter period.

Maybe it came as a shock to the system when we didn’t score first and I think this season has shown that we are not brilliant at responding after going behind. The addition of Ava Seumanufagai from Cronulla will hopefully help this with his 118 NRL games along with giving the club shop staff a headache.

Credit to Salford as they are a class outfit this season and it really does make me wonder how we put 46 points past them earlier on in the season.

I think we all need to try to stay positive, however hard that may be, and hopefully we can try and get some momentum back. Saying that, the next Super League game will not be easy against a Castleford team who I’m sure would love to get payback for the golden point victory which has been the highlight of our season.

To look on the bright side, we aren’t bottom and the Magic Weekend fixture against London is a must-win in order to ensure we don’t end up there again.

THOMAS LAWRENCE

I guess it’s just one of those seasons. When you feel Leeds are making strides and might get on a run, it just doesn’t happen and it’s the same pitfalls: goalline defence.

Regardless of how well Salford played, we must strive to be better and really should be winning this sort of fixture being a club of our stature and expectations.

So the wait goes on for back-to-back league victories and the focus this week is to not be on the wrong end of a Cup upset against the old forgotten foe, Bradford Bulls.

It goes without saying that this game will be much tougher than our last Challenge Cup fixture – Bradford will undoubtedly be fired up by their hostile crowd at Odsal, but I fully expect Leeds to be comfortable victors by 5 o’clock on Saturday.

I do hope that the event can be even a shadow of what it used to be and that Leeds can play with confidence again to not only keep alive one realistic chance of silverware this year, but just send us with a springboard of positivity before another visit from Castleford next week.

TIM NUTTALL

Again we hoped that the Rhinos could manage back-to-back wins in Super League for the first time this season.

Again we were left waiting as a confident Salford side took advantage of yet more poor defending.

Watching the tries back, nearly all of them could have been avoided. Not to take anything away from the work of Robert Lui and Jackson Hastings, but in many of the tries we conceded we had three or four defenders around the ball yet they either dropped off the tackle or the attacker showed far more determination to keep battling and get the ball down.

It was interesting to see that Richard Marshall was with Kevin Sinfield on Friday night; at the time of writing there has been no news about the new coach but plenty of speculation!

Next we move on to the big challenge of playing Bradford at Odsal on Saturday; one thing is for sure, they have (understandably so) been selling this game hard.

John Kear loves an underdog tag and they will come at us strongly from the start.