I suggest you re-read. The passage you quoted was in the paragraph where I was referring to 2011-2015. ie he is OK with world class players in a settled champion team, with "a small smattering of injuries which do not disrupt too much".

I shall not require an apology re "shows the paucity and inaccuracy of your arguments"

Your first paragraph is just waffle.

I concur.

For the record (as you were replying to my post), I did not use the word spiteful (or anything resembling it)

Yes, all those tributes to Muhammad Ali make that abundantly clear.

However, the first part of your post is beyond dispute. Despite what others have posted, I struggle to see Peacock coaching in any tactical sense. Sinfield, possibly. I reckon their real value came from them stamping their values onto the team, probably between games as much as during them. I've no doubt McDermott is trying to instil exactly the same ethos. Difference is, without anyone on the playing side to reinforce it he's struggling badly. I've no real objection to changing the coach but I do feel that unless the club signs a player/players that can get the squad to really knuckle down there'll be scant improvement.

No you didnt SoH but a previous poster did.

So let us be clear Sal, do you want a change of coach or do you want Mac to stay?

I am not so deep in the blame game as you but my view is based on what is clearly and firstly the players that are failing to perform. IMO this has been down to errors and poor decision making that has been the personal responsibility of those same players who should know how to tackle, pass and where to stand in the defensive line as they have done hundreds of times previously. Your whole argument is based an assumption that the coach is not working on the training field to improve performances. Why do you think the likes of Hardaker, Watkins and recently McGuire are making schoolboy errors?

I believe there are reasonable reasons outside the coaches control. Confidence like momentum are great when going for you but much more difficult to arrest when running against you. This season has been a very odd one throughout SL and just a few less errors at crucial times in games could have seen us mid table now.

But we are where we are and we have to accept that and we would all do better to get behind the players and coaches to try and lift the confidence rather than yet more and more negative topics that all repeat the same thing.

An understandable reaction to a recent event doesn't make the saying any less true. There will be a time for a reflection on McDermott's Headingley career but the current situation won't wait.

Firstly this board I believe has no impact on confidence at Headingley and if it has then they are in the wrong business.

And secondly the only time you've been behind Hardaker, Hall and Watkins is with your boot up their arris as they walk through the exit door.

.... His stubbornness and spitefulness e.g. Baldwinson non selection does him no favours when the going is tough and you need a few friends. As the saying goes "what goes around comes around"..

More pertinently I believe " make friends on the way up because you never know who you might meet/need on the way down".

Really? Would you like me to dig up your posts on Hardaker - or, indeed in this very post, where you state:


So it's only a problem if the blame is aimed at BMD?



I know this is aimed at Sal, but as far as I am concerned I do not question his work ethic & that he is frantically trying to solve our current problems. I do, however, question whether he is the man who can put things right - things have got progressively worse, not better.

I also believe that if we signed Cameron Smith (Aus version), Jonathan Thurston & Matt Scott & got our injured players back that it wouldn't be long before BMD looked like the second coming. Coaches, IMO, show their true worth in adversity.



I am a season ticket holder & attend all home & the occasional away match. I do not believe in booing as it is counterproductive. I do my (very small) part in trying to support & lift the team. Do you? Plus what tvoc said

Selective as usual. You may consider yourself good at filling in spreadsheets but you leave much to be desired in your simplistic analysis.

Most coaches would have had the same huge problem to overcome the most persistent and unusual injury crisis that Leeds have had to face this season. If you remove the main half or your key asset it is going to have a serious affect on your performances. Pray tell what are your "ingenious plans to cover" this?

Because I disagree with your opinion regarding BM does not ipso facto mean I therefore think he can walk on water. It is precisely this sort of flawed logic that you are applying to the coach and why I argue against you.

Careful bringing sensible reasoned argument into this forum. Especially the 'injury excuse' that Mac should have magically accounted for.

Still backing Stuart Lancaster for the England RU job?

Often there is no need to look for complicated answers, sometimes it's quite straight forward even if some prefer to dance around the issue.

I'm sure McDermott had a hand in the Leeds success over the previous five seasons as one part of the senior trio which included Sinfield and Peacock. On his own it's turned to dust even quicker than his biggest critics could have anticipated.

Completely agree but i will add when you read comments this season or previous ones you wont find ANY that blame the Coach for EVERYTHING that went or has gone wrong.
Indeed alot of comments where posters dare to ?? The Coach were valid at that moment in time in terms of performances/selections & results.
I dont mind admitting after calling for his sacking a few years ago he & the team proved us wrong & that was great to see.
Of course JC et al will have you believe picking injured players ,using only 15/16 men or selecting his favourites when in a sustained run of poor form is top class Coaching acumen & anybody who questions it has poor judgement because we got it wrong wanting him sacked in previous years.
The fact remains as we stand we are bottom of SL playing the worst RL ive seen in the last 15/20yrs.
Now its a given injuries & pre-season disruptions play a part in that as does questionable recruitment but to sit back & absolve this Coach of any blame imo is wrong & also shows we've gone as far as we can under him.
The 17 available are capable & should be better than they've produced simple as that they still concede the same type of tries they still look clueless in attack & the Coach has failed to address it.
Hopefully GH will cut out the BS & the on/off field clear out will begin so we can hit 2017 running.
Yes players are culpable as is GH but so is the Coach & ATEOTD the buck stops with him other teams have suffered this year & indeed had 1 or 2 hammerings but they've recovered to perform even missing key players we look nowhere near & mssrs Smith & Mclennon left/were let go with much better final seasons on their CV's.

Yes they would - the point is that BMD hasn't made a very good fist of it.

As far as ingenious plans, perhaps I as being a bit tongue in cheek (hence the quotation marks). But BMD is a highly paid professional coach who is tasked with getting the most out of the resources available to him. I quite simply feel that he has not been able to do this. He has been found wanting.

Given the line-ups vs Widnes (A), Salford (A), Wakefield (H), HKR (H) & Castleford (H), before the debacle of this season, would people rather have had the opposition's team or Leeds' to coach? (I might also add Catalans (H) - with 7 of their players unavailable - ooh ooh we had 8/9/10* *delete as applicable). I think most sane-minded know the answer.

Maybe so



Maybe this isn't true either

Personally it's the placing the credit onto Sinfield and Peacock for past success that I find disrespectful and it's only something people jumped on when McDermott himself revealed they did SOME coaching in training and his detractors turned this into they did it ALL.

Also people bringing up his London record to kick him whilst ignoring how badly that club was run as the years passed by and just about any coach would've struggle with that gig under the ownership/management there.

I never said Sinny/JP did it all plus it wasn't just jumped on either its a pretty rellevant point to make given A where we are & B.The obvious influence both had.
As for London again i never mentioned it but i will say that the owner backed him with a reasonable SC spend as long as he could.

It wasn't said as a personal claim against you, just what has been said in general.

Doesn't really matter if you get sixty thousand every week if you sit rock bottom of the league.

I have a lot of time for Lancaster (we tried to get him as a player coach 18 years back) but he played an important role in reviving England's fortunes and bringing on younger players and the current squad are effectively Lancaster's choices. Quite why the players under performed so badly in the World Cup is still not clear but another example of players failing their coach. That said I was never in favour of Lancaster's pre determined substitution policy which played a part in the key defeat by Wales. But as a RU expert you will know that.



Too true. Nothing complicated about it at all - we have had half our squad (the better half) sitting in the stand injured each week. QED



How generous of you to afford Mac some crumbs from your table. I see you are trying to spin this theory that Mac was one of three coaches. I do not remember you blaming and calling for the head of these so called co-coaches (Sinfield & JP) in the years since 2011. Can you send me the link for your "taxi for Sinfield and JP" coaching comments

I added the quotation marks they were not in your original posting