YES !! I think one or two posters would have dearly loved to see him to fail and they would have then been all over this board.

Oh alright then

Disagree DA I think they see the quality we have in this team/squad and get angry/frustrated when it goes completely t!t$ up and loses with as little as a whimper.

Any chance you can enjoy this trophy for a couple of days without all the "yeah, but..."?? Im sure all the doom mongers will re-appear in a couple of days and you can all start dissecting the team and the coach again. For now, just enjoy the 1st challenge cup in 15 years.

Yes I can accept that for most. They simply don't understand what makes players and coaches tick and yes anger and frustration without understanding can be forgiven.

What knarks me is those with axes to grind and those who are gifted with 20/20 hindsight.

I will confess I misunderstood the man when he first came and I think that prejudice was coloured by his playing background but I soon recognised that I was wrong and he is clearly a gifted coach. His record stands for itself.

I don't believe its his job to entertain the fans but rather to win as many trophies as possible. SL is a business like any other and if you decide to "invest" in that then you need to learn to accept the losses and enjoy gains.

It's classic SouthStander. Even when the club wins the CC, the one missing piece for this generation they still have to dig their heels in because of what they've written previously about the team and coach and can't bring themselves to admit they were wrong, instead they try to deflect away from it.

They say it's not all about winning. Which is true to an extent but to practically shrug at this success simply because of stubbornness, well the word 'pity' is often banded around towards supporters who have paid money when we play poorly.....I think in reality the word pity actually belongs to those with the view/behaviour I just described. I bet if we played great rugby every week and finished 1st but lost in the playoffs they'd be singing a different song.

all i would say to the doom mongers that want mac out is be carefull what you wish for

mac is without a doubt the least respected/celebrated rhinos coach from large amounts of our fans both on here and at the grounds on game days,and despite him delivering the goods within a salary capped sport when it matters most.....shame really

Completely agree with the majority of posts on this thread. My now infamous other thread of a similar name was posted 3 years ago when we'd just appointed a coach with no pedigree of which to speak of and at the time we looked like we were going backwards. 3 years on and like has been mentioned Brian McD is now up there with the greats.

I fear your might well be prophetic in your view.However I don't think he takes much notice of what supporters say or think


IIRC he once stated [iIf you start listening to the spectators then you will soon find yourself sitting next to them.[/i

That was Wayne Bennett

Ok

but its still relevant imo

it was bennett but that quote also applies to mac without a doubt

Credit to you for that. Just looked at the opening post on that thread, and even Lowes is doing OK for himself now!

I'll admit to not having been a McDermott fan, and not because he used to play for Bradford. When he came, I thought he was a good choice and it was a flip up between him and Powell. But I did think he'd play exciting rugby. We never seemed to get that, but the events of the last few weeks have seen me warm to him. The loses to Bradford and London weren't his fault. He picked teams capable of winning but the players didn't do it. Yeah, some blame laid with him. But he used the squad, like many of us have called for, against the 2 weakest teams in the league.

Then, ready some of the articles in the build up to the game I understood him a bit more and understood why the players love him. He knows how special this group is and what winning the CC meant to them. As fans we like to think losing means everything to us but really its nothing. To the players and staff it means everything and he's given them the game plan to win the last 2 cup games. So well done Brian and I was one of those saving the biggest cheer for when he lifted the cup. My only beef was when they were having the team picture after and he hovered at the edge. They should have made him stand in the middle but I guess that's just him.

Also want to say thank you to Gary Hetherington. He gets stick for not spending money on big signings but he's got us to this level and helped maintain it whilst making a profit. Sure he's done a lot in the background to create our culture and players wanting to play for the club for less money.

These knock-out games are all about winning and that's what this team did in this competition in 2014. The game-plan was depressingly dour at times (entire sets seemingly played in a ten metre short side channel, kicks in attacking field position negatively drilled into touch) but irrelevant in the circumstances.

I'm pleased for but most of all relieved for the core group of players and congratulate them for completing their domestic set of honors - anything that fell short of that would have been a travesty.

damned with faint praise indeed.

for one so concerned with stats and seemingly with success rates you seemed to have somehow overlooked something in your post...care to fill us in on the match yesterday ????

Castleford 10 Leeds 23

Not sure whether it was Wayne Bennett or Brian McDermott who said it but hard to disagree with either.

The faintest of praise indeed by one of the usual suspects.



Bet he hated the cheer for McDermott lifting the cup (which was one of the best moments of the day IMO)

I still don't agree with his 3 man substitutes, but he got it spot on in the final for me. After a dominant first half for us, Cas were always going to come out with a win at all costs response. The "negative" tactics were spot on for me and were pretty much the same we used to nullify Vainikolo several years ago.

When he was nearly in tears during the BBC interview it really showed how much it meant to him and that's all you can ask for from a coach. Long may his reign and sometimes baffling uses of substitutes continue

The game plan was similar in that we had a clear kicking plan and executed it very well but they were totally different kicking plans.

Yesterday was all centred around Clark. If you are trying to stop him you have already failed. What Leeds did was stop Clark by stopping cas ever getting a roll on. By kicking out each set we got a breather, a set defence and 90m from our try line. We then used the extra energy we had from the scrum, to put in some aggressive defrnce and starve Clarke of any chance to go from dummy half with any real affect.

Yep. And it didn't allow Dorn or Carney to counter attack when returning kicks.

There's way too much bitterness on these boards ATM. We should all revel in the success, and perhaps agree to leave the past behind?

I was a BM doubter early on. What he clearly has is the support of the spine of the team - Sinfield, Peacock et al - which is where, seemingly his predecessor fell down after a good start. Coming in to manage players with their records couldn't have been easy, and I for one take my hat off to him.

His biggest challenge lies ahead though - managing the gradual (even potentially not-so-gradual) replacement of the core players over the next few years.

The "game plan" was obviously designed to stop Cas getting any momentum with the ball. It worked superbly in that regard because the players worked tirelessly and Leeds kicked to the left corner and boxed Luke Dorn in. The Cas kicking game was shocking by contrast. Kicking straight down the field and allowing Briscoe, Haradker and Hall to get Leeds to the 40 nearly every set after 2 tackles. However the main difference was Leeds dominance in the collision. You can say the game plan was "dour" on attack but the easy metres were there on offer every set for Leeds - particularly the first half where the stats were rediculously unballanced. So why not take them?
I think you have to give credit to Cas for Leeds not scoring more points. We did make half breaks and we did look dangerous on both flanks but Cas are a good side and they worked really hard to cover defrend those. What Leeds players didn't do in those situations is force the play and make mistakes - so in that respect maybe Leeds were a little conservative.

As for the subs, maybe Achurch or Singleton would have been more useful on Saturday on the bench instead of Sutcliffe, but I guess the thinking was that Sutcliffe was there for a situation that never occured, where we had to chase the game from behind, or perhaps a situation where Cas were not as comitted defensively.

I also thought Powell made mistakes. Huby was poor selection. He may have not made any glaring errors but the number of times he was left on the floor clearly in pain after a tackle leaving only one marker made him a real liability IMO. Clarke also had too much defence to do, good tactics by Leeds but Powell must have realised Leeds would try and target Clarke to make him defend. However, they did shut down Ablett on the left near the line and they did very carefuly watch Hardaker linking on the right.

In the end we got a dominant perfromance that got the result. Against a less committed defence Leeds could have posted 40 points or more but Cas did defend their line tremendously well.

By the way, what a winey little b**ch Luke Dorn is. Tried to maake up for his lack of metres running with the ball and being dominated in every collision by crawling along the floor after every tackle, bitc**g to the ref and trying to milk a penalty. A headbutt would have been well deserved.