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Paul Cooke

Latest James Bentley incident sums up Leeds Rhinos' big problem perfectly

I was on the radio for Leeds Rhinos' defeat to Wakefield Trinity and it was a real eye-opener. I thought when they lost to St Helens, when they should have got one point and probably two, that it would hurt them physically and mentally and two weeks on, they've lost to the bottom two teams.

Nevertheless, that isn't acceptable. I watched them Sunday and the left arm doesn't know what the right is doing. They are well and truly lacking leaders and from conversations I've had it is not a happy camp. They're void of ideas and they've just lost to a team that had lost 15 straight matches and played with a man less for 25 minutes.

I think the real eye-opener for me was James Bentley and when he was brought off at the end. He comes off shrugging his shoulders, throwing things and sulking. As a coach or a player, I couldn't be having that.

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I saw that happen once when I was at Doncaster Knights, the same thing happened with Clive Griffiths and I promise you now the player in question was in tears in the office when he laid into him for showing disrespect to a coach. Yet then after the match, Rohan Smith was almost defending it. I think that sums it up for me.

Let's be fair, when he is pulled off it's after he's given away another penalty, so it's no wonder he's taken him off the field. I don't mean this disrespectfully, he must know why he's been brought off the field, he must have the knowledge to know why.

The attack is a big problem for me. It all looks s*** or bust and at the minute, they're miles off. They don't finish their chances and they make way too many errors. They're making it too easy for teams and too hard for themselves.

Rohan has a really unique style, it's similar to Tony, he distances the players from any sort of pressure and you're wrapping them up in cotton wool and it's like they're getting away from it. But it doesn't look to be working for them from where I'm looking.

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