........our very own Brian McDermott. This award is given across all sports in the country and is, to my mind, one hell of an accolade to receive.

Heartiest congratulations Brian. You should be very proud. It reflects very well on you and your staff, the club and indeed the wider game.

Just imagine how good he could have been if he'd only followed the advise proffered on here

Well deserved.



Take that Rod Studd.

It's good that all the remaining doubters about McDermott are now confined to posters on this forum. They're all safely in one place, easy to monitor and do not pose an immediate risk to the public.

I have been critical of the decision of GH not appoint a proper assistant coach to BM since it seemed to me to be a cost cutting exercise not in the best interests of the club or BM himself. His is a very lonely position it seems to me.
Over the previous three or four seasons I also thought that we were not developing as a team relying too often on moments of individual skill from our outstanding individual performers.
However, the last season was a revelation where we did play far more as a team collectively well. To a large extent brought on with the arrival of Cuthbertson that brought about a much more cohesive & collective style of play.
So hats off to BM, his selection of Coach of the Year is well deserved.
Good job though that the selection took place before the Davis Cup victory.

This.

If McDermott wanted a single assistant coach he could have one. Money and budgets are not an issue in that respect at Leeds.

As it is, he heads up a coaching department of 20+ people; McDermott's position is lonely because that's the nature of the job but he certainly doesn't lack for people offering alternative opinions, suggestions and solutions.

GOAT Mcdermott! always felt he was destined for greatness

Congratulations Mac. Very well deserved and good luck next season.

This team has been in decline since before they ever even won anything. It just happens that everythone else got worse faster than we did.

the additions of cuthbo and garbutt improved us

whether the players would finally have implemented supermacs methods without them we'll never know

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.

Totally changed our style of play from 2014 to 2015 and deserves massive credit for it.

Yep but also had the Leadership to adapt the Team when some big injuries bit late on in the season.
Full credit to him and his staff and hopefully we'll finally see the end of the 15/16 man match-day squad in 2016 now we have seen the fringe/younger players can be trusted as well.

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.

thats the thing, i dont think the biggest part of the transition is yet to be done. Whilst any side losing Peacock and Sinfield is almost certainly going to suffer a drop, we arent going to see the drop we would have seen had 2012 or 2013 leeds had to do so. We have already moved on from the Leeds side that was built around Sinfield and Peacock.

Its probable, in my opinion, that next seasons squad is better than 2012's and we are a contender for a trophy or two again, that, having lost two players of the stature of Peacock and Sinfield is an outstanding achievement.

What are the "for the love of god, allah or whoever - McDermott go" mob saying about this?

"We were poor, but he won coach of the year because ALL the teams and individuals in ALL the different sports in the country were poorer"

McDermott has just helped lead USA to qualify for the 2017 RL World Cup. This category has gone under the radar in terms of BBC Sports Personality but I wonder how he'll fair in the Coach of the Yeat award. Similar candidates to the team of the year with the guys who lead the Davis Cup team and England's football women's team in the hunt.

Does the dimwit who started that thread still come on here or did he go with his tail between his legs?

With some grace he admitted he'd been wrong. Long before some of those who subsequently posted IIRC.

Quote ="Clearwing"With some grace he admitted he'd been wrong. Long before some of those who subsequently posted IIRC.'" He did. People will always moan and over react though. Some people still doubting Mac on the very same thread this year during our little wobble before the playoffs viewtopic.php?f=17&t=500492&start=1250

Quote ="Clearwing"With some grace he admitted he'd been wrong. Long before some of those who subsequently posted IIRC.'" He did. People will always moan and over react though. Some people still doubting Mac on the very same thread this year during our little wobble before the playoffs viewtopic.php?f=17&t=500492&start=1250

Quote ="Biff Tannen"He did. People will always moan and over react though. Some people still doubting Mac on the very same thread this year during our little wobble before the playoffs viewtopic.php?f=17&t=500492&start=1250'" All qualified members of the keyboard coaching society no doubt!

Quote ="Biff Tannen"He did. People will always moan and over react though. Some people still doubting Mac on the very same thread this year during our little wobble before the playoffs viewtopic.php?f=17&t=500492&start=1250'" All qualified members of the keyboard coaching society no doubt!

In the first dozen or so pages their's a comical conspiracy theory from two posters who say GH KNEW 2011 was going to be bad because he didn't want to spend any money and he deliberately set McClennen up to take the flak for that year and McDermott could ride in in 2012 and save things, however McClennen bolted before because he knew what GH was up to.

and we finished fifth ..................