I think the coaching set-up has to take the bulk of the blame for the dismal efforts shown by the team. Ok the players are not performing but that has to come down to what is being done during the week, unless of course it's all the Nandos and Costa coffees they're having.

But if the coaching team goes who do we replace them with. Getting a top quality coach to come in for next season won't be a problem as if we look now a team will be more willing to allow them to leave as they have time to look for a replacement. However in the interim who is available? I think John Kear would jump at the chance to try his hand with a big team and prove people of his abilities. Someone has already mentioned Murray and what about McClennan?

McD must go! Even given that several players should not wear the much-loved shirt, he and his lack of game plan, lack of defence coaching, lack of inspiration, lack of proper use of forwards, lack of ideas, lack of understanding of what is wrong and what needs to be adjusted means he must carry the can. I am sorry but Kirke and Cross bring us nothing! If McD thinks Bailey is outstanding then heaven help us. He is still a liability and, often along with JJB, has become a penalty giftvoucher. I felt like weeping last night!!

1) Not Brian Noble .... Just because he's English and available does not qualify you for the Leeds job.

2) Murray is the logical choice, but I understand that when he left, he upset GH. However, just in the same way that the sleeve now has to appreciate that getting BMD in was a mistake, he will also have to eat 'humble pie' and get Murray back if only until the end of the season.

- Proven coach in both hemispheres of the game

- Grand Final reaching coach in both hemispheres

- Noted for producing a big, nasty defensive unit .... The sort of thing that you'd though the Marine would have been able to do ?

- Noted for making average players better (Kirke ?)

- Leeds legend and popular with the fans

- Noted for sorting out player culture

- Has stated on occasions that he'd love to come back

It's time for a complete overhaul of entire structure of the club. Out with the joke of a coaching team, get rid of the other Mcdermott, get rid of half the players, too many as beens.

I was all in favour of giving him a season but not after watching the way we are playing and the lack of defence. We need someone like Graham Murray. Get him on the plane now! He will certainly put some backbone into are team.

we only have to look at the way Dalglish has stablised Liverpool.
I didnt expect us to win anything i.e SL for awhile I thought 2-3 years of transition,but I did'nt expect us to become an utter laughing stock.This team is older,but nobody is telling me they are not capable of competing.

bring in a decent stopgap for rest of season,then go for Nathan Brown

It's time for the return of Daryl Powell.

Gotcha has his di-ck in his hand over that prospect.

I suspect the leeds management focus for the next couple of years will be off field rather than on field activities. We are having to find funding for the southstand and I can see player and coaching staff recruitment and retention being sacrificed and done on the cheap for 2 or 3 years at least while money is diverted away from the team.

Leeds are guaranteed a franchise and with no relegation to drive on field standards, a fallow period (probably outside the top

seems to be the plan. (this is one of the drawbacks of the licence system as it allows failure to be tolerated without consequence)

Expect extensions to current playing staff contracts regardless of form or attitude. McDermott is clearly the cheapest coaching option in the league and that will probably be the determining factor in him retaining his job. GHs attitude is clearly we have had a good run (back to back to back is unprecedented after all) and that a period of under-performance wont drop crowds too far to affect the bottom line- hell we turned up in numbers for 30 barren years!

This in my opinion is sporting and commercial suicide. He only has to look 15 miles away to odsal to see how much damage keeping a coach who is way out his depth in the job, long after anyone with any sense can see he is not up to it will do. I'd love to see Murray back even if its just to sort out this season but commercially I just cant see it.

With an 11MGBP turnover, Leeds will never spend much below the SC...

the idea that the funding of the southstand will affect recruitment is a nonsense imo. Regardless of anything else in the scheme of a £10million pound investment our entire playing budget represents less than 2%, any cut in the playing budget would be a maximum of about £200k (we arent going to go into a season spending less than £1.4m on the cap), which represents 0.2% of that investment, a drop in the ocean. I find it hard to believe GH is sacrificing the possibility of on the field success to find 0.2% of the money to finance the southstand especially considering that at least part of that saving will be lost in lower attendances, lack of prize money, lower merchandise sales etc.

On the coaching side of things, its difficult. McDermott probably deserved his chance, injuries and poor form have probably exacerbated his short-comings and Im loathed to write him off after 10 games, but I struggle to think of a coach who has ever turned around a situation like this. We also have to bear in mind the disruption the upheaval of changing coach mid season and the damage that in itself would do.

Plus we have to ask who we can get, its all very well clamouring for Murray, but would he be prepared to travel half way around the world for half a season? Would he want longer? If he did would he be the right appointment for the next 3 years? What about Noble? His pedigree is unquestioned. We all know he can get a first team playing well. Would he be so bad if he was only given control of the first team with someone else taking responsibility for everything else? Would he be happy with the end of the season? would he want 2 or 3 years?

Also, we need to bear in mind in Australia there is a bit of a merry-go-round going on at the moment in coaching, maybe it is better for us to bide our time and get the right man, see who will be available at the end of the year in a month or two and get the right man for next year, rather than acting now and getting who is available rather than who is right.

Not just INTO Europe but dominated the European Cup for two years !

maybe the decision has already been made,after all a new coach would want an say in recruiting for the following season,either McD is staying, or the new coach is already in place and making decions behind the scenes

Absolutely.

Absolutely right - people who say that seem to be just trying to find some logic or blame at the top in the sometimes seemingly random cycles of sporting success.

Personally, I think sacking McDermott now is not something which should be considered and we'll see where we are at the end of the season. We have (or most of us have) got into the habit of overlooking early season form with the expectation of us suddenly "turning up" in the playoffs. Indeed, the repeated woefulness of Bluey's teams for huge chunks of seasons (and indeed Smith's in much of 2006 and 2007) seems to be being forgotten. Not to say that is right or wrong and I wouldn't suggest we are on the right track now but I think the same standard should apply to Brian Mac: no matter how awful it seems today, it's August to October that matters.

However, all that said, if it were to be the case that we were looking for replacements then we need to decide what position we are in and where we want to go. If we were to consider bringing someone in mid-season for 6 months then IMO we may as well just let BM finish off what he has started. So we may be looking for a permanent replacement. With the greatest respect to Graham Murray, who I admire massively, he did very little in terms of bringing young players in or on - he was very effective instead at getting more than (much more than) the sum of the parts he had available to him in the form of a group of mostly quite old players, a team which by necessity had to be dismantled shortly after he left.

That is sort of the position we are in now, but are we looking to transition to a new team, or try and hold course with the core we have for a while longer? Tricky. Noble I would say is similar to Murray in some respects but also more inherently objectionable.

It is my belief that McDermott wont turn it around but he probably does deserve a bit more time. If we dont win at least 3 out of the next 5 and 7 out of the next 10. Then things will probably come to a head.

I would say both Noble and Murray would get more out of this side than McDermott is. But is succession planning part of their skillset?

I wouldnt be averse to seeing either come in on a short-term basis until the end of the season.

Next season (if McDermott doesnt turn it around) maybe Matty Elliott would be the place to look.

For the love of God NO!

Who else is there? John Lang is 60, probably not the age to uproot half way around the world. Elliot will likely be replaced by Nathan Brown at the end of the year so he will be available. Wouldnt want Daniel Anderson and I doubt he would come back. Powell has had his shot.

There doesnt seem to be a whole heap of peope available, Wigan are likely to stick with Wane, Salford barely have a coach at the moment.

The overly-influential Sinfield may get his wish earlier than expected.

On the positive side, that ought to see a welcome end to his overly-ineffective international career.

Duncan - Leeds will never be in danger of breaching the cap - I would suspect 1.4/5m is the max GH will ever spend.

To run a premiership RU side is expensive - even with the quality of players Leeds have - that is not possible out of the pure RU revenue streams the money has to come from somewhere.

Lang would be my choice, with a younger British assistant coach who could be groomed to take over in 2 to 3 years.

Neither of the current two are that younger British assistant by the way. Maybe someone like Harris if he would be willing?

What is the TV income for a Prem RU team by comparison to the squad spend?

Lang has had the best squad Souths have had in years and he has taken them backwards - we need another Maguire - a quality assistant from the NRL who is able to shows the ageing core players who is the boss.

I didn't make myself very clear did I. What I meant was that Leeds will never spend up to the cap, but they will never spend way way beneath it either. GH is frugal, but not daft enough to think that by spending say 250k below the cap he would have a squad strong enough to be real contenders.

If I were a betting man, I'd say that every year we are between 30 and 70k under the cap limit.