Jamie Jones-Buchanan gave an emotional post-match interview as he opened up on the 'underlying', 'habitual' and 'cultural' problems rife within the Leeds Rhinos squad at present.
Jones-Buchanan, a bonafide Leeds Rhinos legend after his trophy-laden playing career, provided no hiding place for the faltering squad he has inherited as interim coach, citing their inability to show resilience and leadership qualities when they are needed most.
The Rhinos produced one of the worst first-half performances in living memory as Leeds fans watch a Headingley horror show in which their side left the field at half-time 28-0 down. Though they mustered up some form of response after the break, they crashed out of the cup 34-18 and recorded a sixth defeat in seven games.
It also highlighted that any hope of a turn in performance after the resignation of Richard Agar was nothing short of a fantasy, with Leeds playing as bad as they have in years during the opening half.
After the game, Jones-Buchanan admitted that the issues present at Headingley would not resolve themselves quickly.
"Undeniably, the underlying problems, they're going to take a while to solve," he said. "There are some habitual problems, some cultural ones, there's some who haven't been put under a blowtorch enough to perform at a comfortable level.
"You've got to be able to do it physically. When it gets tough and you're going to be ill-disciplined and have sin bins, you've got to be mentally tough and resilient enough and we're just not there yet."
When asked to go into detail about those issues, Jones-Buchanan started by detailing some of the on-field issues, saying: "Just an inability to work when you're tired, an inability to put in enough kicks. I say don't search for perfection, search for application, be as good as you can be because we're human beings, we're never going to be perfect.
"We're putting in far too many seven-tackle restarts, far too many six agains. The methodical process of people working together, respecting each other and the ball. There are lots of little bits of that, you've just got to have the steel to turn it around and we're not there yet. We've tried to play and train in the sunshine, when everything is rosy and everything is clean, tidy and when nobody is tired. But rugby league is chaos and it's about managing chaos. You can't make a pretty car crash, you have to deal with chaos and we just can't deal with chaos."
The interim coach then spoke at length about some of the cultural issues, citing the club's inability to produce characters like Kevin Sinfield who oversaw incredible success during his time at the club.
"Accountability, pressure, and listen, that's not some sort of tyranny, that's to come from them. One of the things I'm trying to do is get them to show more gratitude for each other, talk to each other, remind each other of what our habits need to look like and tell your mate when they've done something good. I'm no psychologist but the carrot and stick work best together, certainly, accountability from within players is important.
"I make no apologies of talking back about my past, my group. Me and Kev Sinfield have been best mates forever, but we had a personal relationship and a professional one. When I didn't do my job, as close as we were, the fact he was my best man at my wedding, if I didn't do my job on the pitch, he was ruthless, he'd savage it and he'd tell you.
"The common denominator was always Kev, regardless of the coach we have. We speak about him sometimes like he's a messianic figure but he's a human being. How do you create a new Kevin Sinfield? I don't know, nature, nurture, I see Jack Sinfield walking around and he's a carbon copy of his image, maybe it's going to be someone like him that comes through and becomes that next leader because he cares that much about the club, his identity, his team-mates.
"I don't know the intrinsic reasons people behave like they do, but what I've found is the environment weeds out those people if they don't meet the cultural values, but someone needs to drive them, hold them, and we're just not there with it."
