Time for Leeds to stand up and avoid relegation

No matter who you speak to – Neil Back to Marco Wentzel, Andy Key to Andy Titterrell – the hymn sheet never changes.

But the facts scream loudest – bottom, winless, nearly pointless.

Eight Premiership games gone and Leeds Carnegie are seven points adrift, without a victory.

Only three points have been amassed in gaining losing bonuses against Gloucester, Sale and Exeter.

They have won only once in 12 games all season – away at Romanian minnows Bucaresti Oaks in Europe's second-tier competition. Confidence, no matter how we're told otherwise, cannot be high.

But alas, not all is lost. Fourteen games remain and a quick glance at last year's table at this stage of the season shows Leeds were not much better off.

Granted, they had overcome the mental barrier of winning, shocking Wasps in their seventh game, but they were still bottom.

An opening day draw against Newcastle and two losing bonus points gave them eight points and they were within touching distance of the teams above them.

By the 11th game, the mid-point of last season, Leeds had gone to Newcastle and won. Belief filtered through, creating the season's defining period when a losing bonus against Leicester on Valentine's Day prompted a run of three straight wins against Sale, Wasps and Saracens.

It is that sequence that heartens Leeds now. Lightning can strike twice. When one win comes, the rest will follow.

There is nothing to suggest that won't happen, though, worryingly, there are fewer teams within reach with this Sunday's opponents Harlequins only three places above them but 14 points better off.

By the time they face Newcastle on Boxing Day – again the pivotal 11th game of the season after leaders Northampton visit Headingley Carnegie – defeat could be terminal.

So what has gone wrong? Why has a team that finished last season as one of the four strongest teams in the division gone backwards so quickly?

Is it because they tried to walk before they could run, freezing debts to plough more money into the playing budget to chase a Heineken Cup dream?

Is it due to their eagerness to transform a stubborn defence into a more dynamic offensive unit?

Does the second-season syndrome have something to do with it – where opposing teams who have worked you out pay you more respect?

Or is it the fact that the Premiership is a damn hard division with 12 ambitious clubs all striving for improvement?

In truth, it is a little bit of all of those.

Chief executive Gary Hetherington squeezed every ounce of funding possible out of directors, sponsors and anyone who had two coins to rub together to give Back and Key a more competitive budget to play with this season.

A 2.8m budget from the season before swelled to nearly 3.2m – the most the club has ever operated on – but remains 800,000 short of the salary cap ceiling the majority of their Premiership rivals utilise.

Promises of top-six qualification were made by Back as the club attempted to lure local investment, that in the end was not forthcoming.

Their improved financial clout, however, allied with the performances towards the end of last season, prompted Back and Key to attempt to fuse beauty with savagery; elevating their gameplan from the defensive to the offensive.

That remains a blend they are aspiring to with more than a third of the season elapsed, though the current predicament may hasten the need to go back to trying to stop teams scoring before thinking of scoring themselves.

Eleven players were added in the summer, some not to the desired affect – Semi Tadulala is a winger afraid to sprint into open spaces – and 17 allowed to go, among them man-mountain second-row Erik Lund and bulldozing centre Seru Rabeni, neither of whom have been adequately replaced.

Injuries have taken their toll – Titterrell, summer acquisition Lachlan Mackay and Scott Barrow – while Ceiron Thomas has not been as accurate with his kicking as last year, depriving Leeds of a critical weapon.

Furthermore, opposing teams have exploited Leeds's weakness and their uncertainty between defence and attack.

There remains time for Leeds to extract themselves from this perilous situation, and the quicker the better, otherwise the teams that are still within touching distance, will leave them for dead.

The unwavering positivity of Back and Key and their ability to impart that into their squad of players remains Leeds's greatest strength.

But will it be enough?