I wouldn't look back too much at Walker and Watkins with rose-tinted specs. Both were physical freaks, and way ahead of their ages athletically, but Chev ended up having a bang-average career despite early promise, and Watkins was a mixed bag injury-wise for years. I also seem to remember most of his attempted flick passes ending in touch...

Newman is a strike player. He's not Greg Inglis, and he need better luck with injuries, but he has a good balance of natural ball-running talent and agression which make him exciting. Only time will tell whether he's another Stevie Ward or the next Keith Senior.

Chev ruined his career by going to union though, probs would have been different if he had stayed. Also don't forget his horrific leg break.

Agreed, and we might look back at Newman in a few years and say don't forget about his leg break and bad spell of injuries. Doesn't change the fact that Walker ended up being an SL journeyman.

Well that’s your opinion bud.

certainly not mine!

Isn’t it all opinions on here? Not saying Newman won’t end up better than them all, but a lot of variables involved in that. He needs some better players round him too…..

Hes got Olpherts what more do you want

newman has got the potential to be world class. wether he reaches that level time will tell.
chev, in my opinion, was very good but left to go to union before he reached the very top level

Yes that’s why I said it. You’ve misinterpreted what I was saying bud.

Brian McDermott getting some good plaudits for his work at the Knights.

Time to start a McDermott back thread? I noticed him the coaches box at the Nights last week. He’s done it all in SL yet still feels that he can get something out of the game, good on him.

Getting all bleary eyed for mcdermott, yeah he started this rot...

I always used to say that McDermott just loved creating adversity where is wasn't really needed sometimes, flogging certain players, completely ignoring others (remember his name a player on the bench but don't bring them on move?)

remember v Bradford a young Walters being thrown about like a rag doll in the centres. he could have moved delaney there but left Walters on. we got beat. he said Walters had to learn to cope with it. ridiculous

He was a guest speaker at a rugby dinner I attended and he told us that in his opinion the starting 13 should be fit enough and tough enough to play a whole 80 mins no subs every one in the room laughed his face was like thunder the compair cut in and said if they were as hard as you Brian you'd only need ten! True story.

We used to have a few forwards like that (Peacock, JJB, Ablett)
No wonder we were that good!

To be fair to McDermott, when you've been trained as a marine and been shot at, 80 minutes of playing pro rugby league probably feels quite recreational.

I remember Handley saying that McDermott said to him I don't care how well you play you can score an hatrick but once Briscoe is fit you are out of the team.What sort of man management is that.

Terrible, but it worked for his favourites I guess….

His man management and in particular how he spoke to Junior players was appalling. The man's an ego maniac.

At some stage he passed from being a slightly odd, highly driven character with immense self belief into an aggressive loon who clearly believed in his own mythology. The current situation we're in started well before the end of his watch, with the laughably amateur treatment of junior development. It was clear he really had no idea what to do to replace the Golden Generation, and our decline since then until he left is as much his fault as Hetherington's.

If he seriously thinks every player should be capable of 80 minutes then he's a fool. Big bopper forwards train to do short bursts, and even those with amazing stamina can't generally do more than 50-60 minutes a game, and most far less. If they trained to play 80 minutes they could, but they'd be far less dynamic.

hetherington putting brian mac, then barrie mac then Morley in charge was terrible judgement

Completely agree about Barrie. Morley was not there long.
As for Brian Mc, I know he was could upset people but for the most part he got results, more SL titles than any other coach and I know he asked for certain people to be signed at end of the golden period and did not get them.

He was not daft , he knew what big gaps were being left in particular when McGuire left.

McDermott used league games at times to test and stretch players , sometimes it looked nuts but he was all about getting them capable of going above and beyond when push came to shove in big games. I don’t recall him doing the unused sub routine in big games unless we were winning by plenty.

He could do this type of thing because he had a hardened core of quality players.

He used some league matches to test and trial and push players and see what reaction he got. His job was not youth development that was Barrie McDermott. For mine that’s where we went wrong.

I was not a big fan myself but he was good at pushing some players buttons and getting responses. He also pushed players to come up with answers themselves in games.

I don’t think it would work with this group but his record speaks for itself.
I’d add he left in 2018 and we are now 5 years on, I don’t think he carries any blame for current state.

Anyone else feel that the daily clips from the glory years on the Rhinos twitter page are a bit naff given the current context?