Quote ="SmokeyTA"Brian has been leeds coach for 5 years now. Thats a pretty long time in RL. And he has done a pretty amazing job in a couple of ways.
He has I think, already done the 'changeover' from the old guard to the new, and many barely noticed, in fact, many missed it all together and think it is still coming.
When he came in, we had a squad that was at the end of its life and he milked it for 2 years. Winning two grand finals. But that squad has pretty much a completely different back line to this one. We have seen hardaker go from filling in at centre to the best FB in the league, brought in Moon and Briscoe and seen Watkins become the best strike centre in the league, we didnt do that all at once, but slowly and surely changed the personel and the way they needed to play.
In 2013 and 2014 we have done the same thing with the halves and forwards. People will see we have lost Sinfield and Peacock and Kylie and see big losses there, and they are all legends, but, the Sinfield of 2015 wasnt the Sinfield of 2012 and his role in 2015 was much diminished. The same for Peacock and Kylie.
The loss of those players in 2012 would have been devastating, it would have ripped the heart out of a team that was not only reliant on them and their skillset, but built to be reliant on their skillset. For parts of 2015 Sinfield couldnt get on the field and we played some outstanding rugby, Kylie was pretty much a bit part player for the last two years, and for me, as much as a hero and warrior Peacock is, for the first time you could see time catching up and i think you would be hard pressed to argue he was our best prop last year or our most influential (Cuthbertson btw)
credit for this has to go to Brian Mcdermott, he has taken an ageing squad and rebuilt it in to a new one, playing a new style and being hugely successful whilst doing it, leading us to our most successful year ever and despite losing Sinfield and Peacock we are still going in to next year with our best half,and best forwrad, just as we did when we lost Webb and already had Hardaker.
Im not say we are going to repeat this year, but we will be challenging next year, we have rebuilt without slipping, and that is probably the most difficult challenge cfor a sports side so definitely a well deserved award for him.'"
The biggest part of the transition is still yet to come so id hold off declaring it done and dusted we are yet to see how we go without our 2 biggest "Go To" players of the last decade.
The foundations are in place and we have seen the continuation of Acadamy products coming through along with some astute signings but some big tests lay ahead.
