Pah, not been as underwhelmed since McDermott & Lowes took over.

GF win from 5th it is!!

Good luck Jamie hope,it works out well.
I am happy that he is still involved and sir Kev is being quite shrewd employing someone who has his back.
With this head coach or a future one.

A completely irrelevant side point, looking at some of the pictures from camp. Looks like JJB turns up to training with all his Grand Final winners rings on...

Never known someone to be so "Leeds". Talks about how Agar has allowed him to look at creating a culture. Only time will tell I suppose...

jobs for the boys. hive him a job but not this one

Coaching meetings could take a while with JJB waffling on about John the Baptist and Moses in the reeds.

Im sure the novelty of wearing Leeds Rhinos coaching tops hasnt worn off yet either.

It depends what kind of coaching mix we want. Jonesy will be superb for atttiude and heart, teamwork. We have lacked that at times.

Coaching is a team affair as much as the playing staff are these days. What we do need to have is technical excellence and nous/tactics (something we’ve DEFINITELY lacked).

I for one like JJB in the coaching set up. Actually the next step is probably to replace Agar in due course and allow him to take on more back office/development role, when the time is right.

Bottom line is there have been so many changes at Leeds during this transition that we’re going to have to judge performances on the field for a while and be patient while it settles a bit.

Agreed, whilst we are always going to have opinions on here, it really is difficult for us to judge an appointment like this without knowing the ins and outs of the day to day training and running of the squad, we're just going to have see how the new set up goes.

FWIW my prediction is we will surprise a few this year but won't be challenging for silverware bar a favourable CC draw. 5th is my prediction with some great wins and some poor losses along the way. I just hope we can get a good win to loss ratio in the first 10-12 games to make sure were not scraping around the bottom of the table again, 8 wins from 12 would see me very happy and should mean we won't be in a relegation scrap bar a spectacular collapse in form.

Seriously Christopher, what would be the surprise in that? that is a e season by anyones standard for a top club, not challenging for honours. That should be a bare minimum.

I said last year when Furner went on here, what I thought would happen at this club, and I said it fearing the worst. Unfortunately, although I didn't 100% believe it, that has happend. The coaching set up is an absolute joke, and no doubt despite the results that will come there will still be people somehow defending it and blaming something else.

For me despite Jjb being a Club Legend & someone id like to see have a "job for life" that shouldnt include the Assist 1st Team Coaching job.
I dont think Agar is good enough as it is but to not employ a qualified Coach as assistent is ridiculous what with having Webster here P/T aswell why not re-sign Eaton & Lowes.
Losing Carr couldnt be avoided not replacing him with at least 1 like for like Coach is negligent.

The Surprise would be that we actually play well, I think many are thinking we will be dire again this season.

Sinfield said it would take a few years to rebuild the club and I think that is the case, of course the minimum for a top club should be challenging for honours but on the field we haven’t been a top club for a food few years, that will take time to correct, I’ll judge the playing and coaching roster when I’ve seen more of them in action, it’s pointless writing them off before the season starts

Surely Webster is the like for like replacement he’s literally doing the same role

JJB will be great for team morale. I dont know about his coaching ability. I expected him to take a career in the media, an MC on game shows and the occasional cameo drama appearance etc . Are Agar and JJB going to do " Good cop bad cop" ? If so who will be bad cop ?

I understand the comments about jobs for the boys, especially with JJB being best mates with Sinfield. That said, for such a high profile job, and after the Furner debacle, I'm sure Sinfield would have thought long and hard about this, and the risks of it not working. He wouldn't have made the appointment if he didn't think JJB had the attributes to succeed in the role.

I'm in the cautious optimism camp on this one. Sinfield will have limited input into the coaching of the team, but JJB's appointment allows us to directly harness and retain the experience of one of our 'Golden Generation'. JJB benefited from playing in all the winning teams from 2004 - 2017, with many different star players and coaches around him to learn what made the team successful. He's also a deep thinker on the game, perhaps in the vein of Brian Mac (?), which is potentially better than bringing in an identikit NRL assistant type. Time will tell.

Primarily, this should be in the hands of the lads on the field.
For me, he has to bring more to the table. Worryingly, hardly anyone seems to be making the case that he can.

Agar has said what a great thinker of the game JJB is. Hes been very impressed with the depth hes gone to in some of his coaching sessions. I'm quite positive at the moment about this.

I meant in quality mate the improvements when Carr arrived were there for all to see.
Webster has had Coaching jobs elsewhere & imo he's a meh appointment.
We needed imo at least 1 quality FT assistent personally im not convinced by any of them.

Because we can't make that case neither for or against, none if us know what has gone on or what goes on within the squad, as fun as it is on here, it's ultimately all supposition.

Who would you have gone for?

The fact is Webster is Featherstone's coach and with us using them for DR it makes sense to have him assisting at the Rhinos in some capacity.

FWIW I'm not convinced by any of the coaching staff either, how can I be, I haven't seen what this team and coaching staff can do yet but I'm willing to give them a chance before writing them off

Why does it make sense?
DR is a player arrangement Carr was identified as a promising Coach with good ideas i havent seen any of that from Webster as a Coach in fact he's been "moved on" from every appointment.
Id rather we promoted Mark Butterill than waste time with Webster or even made an offer to Cuthbo he's done a brilliant job with the Womens team.
As for writing them off questioning their CV's or quality of their former efforts is reasonable is it not?
The Squad is still lacking quality so at Least with a quality Coaching set up you can compensate for that & make the transition period smoother.

It makes sense because we will have a fair few players playing under him at Featherstone Agar explained it in the presser he did recently, do you think Carr would have been involved last year if he wasn't Fevs coach?

You can question every appointment we make, as we all do (I'm not having a go) but it all ultimately comes down to how we perform, it may click with this set up, it may be dire or it may be somewhere in-between. A glorious CV doesn't automatically guarantee any success there's a lot of factors involved, look at one of the most successful coaches in RL Wayne Bennet or Tim Sheens for that matter. We had a very successful period with coaches that before joining us didn't have great CVs, there's nothing to say this won't happen again. I recall a lot of people (including me) were happy with the Furner appointment and that didn't turn out very well.

The Squad is lacking quality but it's way better than this time last year.

Whilst im willing to wait and see how things work out before writing the coaching staff off, theres no doubt theres a massive risk being taken by the club and very possibly too much 'jobs for the boys' going on. Arguably the biggest club in the country and you'v got to go all the way down to Mark Butterill in the scholarship to find a coach in our whole set up who's renowned for being top quality at the level he'l be coaching us at next season.

Walker with the 18's - No Cv to speak of
JJB - No Cv to speak of
Webster - Underwhelming Cv to date
Agar - Well respected by players he's worked with but results wise...Underwhelming Cv to date

If it works out, brilliant, Two great guys like Agar and JJB leading us in successful times would be a home run. For me though, there looks a lack of proven quality throughout our coaching set up.

I actually agree with this, but lets face it as shown with Furner (and many other coaches over the years not just at Leeds) any coach comes with risk, at least the players seem to gel with Agar I would actually say him coaching us next season was actually the least risky option.

Underwhelming, if not totally predictable appointment.

Zero coaching experience unless you count coaching school kids.

When will we learn?

I'm not sure I get the 'when will we learn' comment

Have we had a string of assistant coaches with no experience?

Saints are going OK with Paul Wellens as assistant coach, what was his CV like?

No, but you'll recall us appointing Morley as Head of Youth Development (or something similar) with zero experience in the role. That ended well didnt it.