Had McDe.......could have, would have, should have. Ifs, buts and maybes. Irrevant conjecture, which proves nothing unless you don't understand the meaning of "prove"
Results are black and white. They are binary. Win or lose. Under McDermott, we've won the big price two times out of two attempts.

He said you cannot argue with the results. Of course, you can argue with them if you want to resort to illogical gibberish and supposition. Which leads to....

Which era of success? Smith won two GFs in years, Bluey won 2 in 3 years. McDermott has won 2 in 2 years. Which players did Smith develop? He inherited Sinfield, McGuire, Burrow, JJB etc etc. Many of last years GF squad didn't play 1st team rugby under Smith.


You argue with the statistics of trophies given by the Printer and use this as an argument. At the risk of being accused of bullying by the more sensitive souls (of which I know you're not one) that is old fashioned frontier gibberish.
You can use that argument against Smith (powell's team) or Mclennan (Smith and Powells team). It's a non argument.

Well argued. I like McDermott. He's saved me heaps of dosh by treating the regular season with the irrelevant contempt which it deserves and I've followed suit. At least we all now know that the season doesn't really kick off until mid-September these days.

Don't pretend you weren't bludging and cloud watching well before McDermott's tenure.

6 (Achurch, Delaney, Hardaker, Moon, Moore & Vickery) of the first team squad of 25 have been signed after Smith left the club. 4 of these signed during McDermott's tenure.
Another 9 players (Clarkson, Hood, Jones-Bishop, Keinhorst, McShane, Singleton, Sutcliffe, Ward & Watkins) made their debuts having come through the academy after Smith left the club. 5 of these have made their debuts under McDermott.
10 of the current squad (Ablett, Bailey, Burrow, Hall, JJB, Kirke, Leuluai, McGuire, Peacock & Sinfield) of 25 played under Smith. Of those, 3 (Kirke, Leuluai & Peacock) were signed by Smith and 2 (Ablett & Hall) made their debuts under Smith. Although I would credit him at least partially with the development of JJB.

The current team is at best 40% Smith. Which of those players have regressed under McDermott? Which of those players have regressed simply because they're 5/6 years older than they used to be?
Which players have improved? I'd suggest at least Ryan Hall has. But then you wrote off Ryan Hall.

Most of my bludging and cloud formation studies were way back. I can assure you that I've only attended and paid twice during McDermott's tenure during the regular season, and both of those were WCC fixtures. If the current coach and the team can't be d with the regular season SL games, then neither can I.

So its just down to luck then?

Ok how about the luck that Smith had that the gap between the NRL and SL Salary Caps wasn't as big back then.

They'd be no Webb or Lauitiiti for sure, no Toopi, Donald, Leuluai or Bai. And given that quite average forwards like Mike Cooper are able to get a gig in Oz then I doubt we'd have even seen Peacock or Ellis at Leeds. Was he responsible for the signings like Senior or Furner who played a bit part in the '04 success? The likes of Sinfield, Burrow, McGuire, Diskin, Calderwood, Walker, Bailey all first framers before he arrived.

I'd say that if any of the last 3 Leeds coaches was lucky it was Smith, that he didn't deliver more when he should've given his resources shows he wasnt the be all and the end all.

Oh and if McDermott gets stick for playing players in 'wrong positions' then remember Sinfield did sometimes play 6 under Smith, also Smith often played JJB at prop (even in 2006 with Peacock at 2nd Row).

Leeds' Average Regular Round finish:

Smith 2 (inc 1 LLS) .....McClennan 2.33 (inc 1 LLS) ..... under McDermott 5

When you buy your season ticket this is what you are paying for. Under Smith a win or a draw in almost 8 out of 10, under McDermott it's below 6 - that's Dean Lance territory. Under Smith an average score of 34 - 18 under McDermott 28 - 22.

Did I say all was well under Smith - are you saying all is well now?

I was talking about the standard of play under Smith and the entertainment value on offer when compared to what we see today. Leeds on average scored more points per game under Smith than under any other coach they've had during the SL era while at the same time conceding (along with Murray's Leeds) the fewest.




Time it took arguably the game's biggest under-achievers to win the Championship before Smith took over ? - well they simply hadn't for quite a while, not since 1972 and I was there so can relate to how long and how big a deal that was for Leeds - a 32 year wait and under how many coaches and after spending how many millions? Perhaps you had to be there to appreciate the enormity of that one achievement - IIRC 2004 was also the first time Leeds had finished top in a season of divisional rugby. That's big - to be the first for Leeds not just during the SL Era but during their entire history.

Smith has made a positive impact at three SL clubs, he's left two of them in a much better state than when he took them over and it's hard to imagine he won't make that a hat-trick when he finally leaves Warrington. Did McDermott improve his previous club as a head coach?

If we ran a poll amongst Leeds and Warrington fans:

'if you could swap coaches would you' - yes or no - what do you think the result would be?

Both McClennan and McDermott have enjoyed success by virtue of a core group of players who became Champions under Smith's guidance. Smith took the raw potential and moulded them in to the Champion players they remain to this day. How much credit goes to McDermott for Championship winning campaigns launched from 5th (in the current flawed system) and how much is down to the bloody minded resilience of a core group of Champion players?

The true value of McDermott the coach is yet to be seen when he gets the opportunity to take a team of underachievers and turns them into .... well even bigger underachievers I guess would be the answer judging by his three and a half year spell at the Harlequins.

__________

Peacock on the SLS tonight said something like: 'This time of year when the teams with thin squads tend to struggle .... you like to try to keep your players fresh' (I don't have the exact quote) - but if you didn't know he was talking about Bradford, he could have been looking even closer to home and even if he wasn't the quote fitted just as well.

Being.

And McDermott isn't the problem.

Yes Smith turned them into champions (how long the club had gone without is irrelevant because it wasn't like it was the same group of players failing for 3 decades) with a quick treble of LLS & GF '04 & WCC '05 (which they almost blew against an Canterbury team that gave much less of a damn than the last few NRL teams have)......he then quickly turned them back into underachievers by failing to push on and show that something that the best sports individuals/teams have - desire to repeat and repeat success.

10 targets went unfulfilled from between the '05 WCC & '07 GF. Throughout that period the team looked like one content with past glories and lacking the necessary hunger to keep picking up silverware. Whatever people think of McClellan and McDermott tactically, they did install a fight and hunger in their teams to keep wanting to win stuff, a task that was as hard as any a coach has faced because after winning it so many times it was easy for the desire to fade away and be content with 3,4 or 5 GF Rings.

That's the problem with Tony Smith as a coach.....his teams lack fight. Everything was fine if Plan A was going fine and we could play our attractive rugby, when things didn't go to plan we looked poor.
Since Smith left we've won 4 of 5 GF....all of them tight contests we really had to battle. If Smith had stayed I say we win possibly 2 out of last 5 GF.

Not just as individual players but also as a collective - which is essential in a team sport. Past failures weren't always through a lack in quality but through a lack of togetherness, the team is bigger than the individual. Smith was the right appointment at the right time. All Leeds' recent success at 1st grade level dates back to the culture he introduced. It's a culture that the core players continue to exhibit long after Smith's departure, it's a culture he went on to introduce at Warrington - another massively under achieving club who have made great strides.

Smith didn't inherit winners - he inherited potential and blended that with the necessary experience, McClennan and McDermott inherited Champions and as long as the core remain it's impossible to right off this group of players but they won't be around forever to win it from '5th' for the token figurehead - who questions referees understanding of the game as if that will result in 50/50 calls going Leeds way.

Some good points TVOC but id honestly say that a lot of the"togetherness" was born in the Acadamy teams most played in and also Powell showed with his no BS approach to the team cull he over saw that no-one was bigger than the team.

You simply can't belittle the magnitude of Smith's achievements with the side in 2004. Especially given our efforts in 2003, when Leeds were probably the second best team in the league yet completely incapable of matching Bradford.

That said, Smith's tenure from the 05 WCC to the 2007 GF was incredibly frustrating, especially as we had effectively the same team and had added the likes of Ellis, then Peacock, Webb etc. As much as the last regular season and a half have been similarly frustrating, at least we've achieved something under McDermott - which makes the 2005 season seem all the more futile in hindsight.

If anything we seemed to have the best of both worlds under McClennan - maintaining league form and winning pots, yet for some reason he is not treated with the same esteem as Smith or McDermott (hence not being inducted into the SS.com Hall of Fame...). 2010 was disappointing, but no more so than 2005 IMO.

I don't think there's a clear winner in this debate, however fun it is. While each coach has had his successes and failures, at the end of the day we've had an embarrassment of riches in this department since Powell. And long may it continue. We've come a long way since the dreaded Laughton days - the height of our underachievement IMO.

Indeed. And some of the credit for this tough winning culture should go to McDermott who, as assistant to Smith, played a key role, as I personnaly observed on more than one occassion at the time.



McDermott did not inherit champions. He inherited former champions who had lost the plot. BM is an important common denominator in both these periods of success.

Is he a denominator in the period of success that saw Leeds win two Grand Finals under their new coach, achieved after regular season finishes of first and second rather than fifth and fifth?

The "former champions who had lost the plot" then finished fourth in the regular season, were runners up at Wembley, and fell one match from the grand final despite being without their two best-performing players of the time.

I await your judgement of how much the plot has been lost should any or all of these benchmarks not be achieved in Brian McDermott's third season.

Maybe the title was a tougher proposition between 2004-2006 than it was later, i.e the opposition was better? That could've influenced the relative success under Smith.

The way I see it Powell built the side and made them into contenders. Smith made them winners. But no side wins all the competitions all the time. Despite not doing much in 2005 and 2006 you still made one GF and won a WCC. Since then the team has gone on and dominated SL, nobody has really come close to consistently matching Leeds when it matters. Losing the plot???

I think this post has been misinterpreted. It just lacks one colon and it starts to make sense. Observe...



Otherwise it's just a post that's not self-consistent and even if you unpick the contorted metaphors, seems to end in a theory that isn't supported by even existing facts.

From somebody usually quite keen on stats and evidence, this scans as hyperbole really. Is the claim that Leeds haven't been coached since 2007 something you can actually justify?

I have no intention of getting into a debate on the relative merits of Smith and McDermott. They arrived at very differnet times in the club's development to do very different jobs. I would still make a case myself for Smith being the better coach in that context, but it's a big leap from there to dismissing any coaching role from 2 pretty successful successors.

Yes turned them into champions....he then turned them back into underachievers, before getting it right on GF night '07, something McDermott does and is criticised still.

The way people paint it is that whoever took over after Smith COULDN'T fail, when they so easily could've. At the start of 2008 he left behind a squad still deemed 2nd best to Saints (as shown by the LLS and CC Semi). Over time McClellan installed a fight in them that Smith couldn't and did what he couldn't....finish above a competitive and strong Saints team in the league table.

People might be waiting for McDermott to achieve something with 'his own side'.....well I'm waiting for Smith to go somewhere without the luxury of big signings and 'do it tough'......but in reality he'll probably end up at Salford if Koukash can deliver on big signings. No coach since the beginning of 2004 has been given more luxury in terms of player recruitment yet he's only won 2 out of a possible 7 GF's.

As for the culture HE introduced, are we going to forget the roles Dean Bell, Darryl Powell & GH played in it before Smith even arrived. Smith praised for his ruthlessness, yet who went out and got him and ditched Powell in possibly the most ruthless move at the club over the last decade?

I reckon quite a few coaches could've come and achieved the same amount as Smith over those 4 years, whether it be they had to wait until the latter years to pick up the chunk of the 5 titles Smith managed. I think less coaches could've won the GF back to back in the last 2 years (even if they finished higher in the table), certainly not Smith who has failed in 3 straight attempts with Wire even though they play the better rugby and finished higher in the league. If coming into a new club at the right time and moulding them into GF winners is Smith's quality....then why hasn't he done it at Wire? He again has been 'given' the resources to do so. The last 2 occasions his Harlem Globetrotters haven't been able to beat The Idiot and his OAP's. Is it because of the vast playoff experience Leeds have?......Well so did Bradford in the 2004. The personalities and characters of the likes of Sinfield, JJB and Peacock, so key to our success weren't moulded by Smith.

Any news on Watkins injury yet

I wouldn't have thought so but sometimes I like to post in a whimsical manner, not expecting it to be taken entirely seriously.

That said I see what McDermott is doing and I'm not finding it an attractive proposition at this point in the season. The goal-line defence is particularly concerning where players seem incapable of working consistently as a unit for a full set of six and are often found wandering around doing their own thing. This becomes doubly frustrating up at the other end of the field when opponents simply refuse to open up like the Red Sea and Leeds have to actually earn their scores by passing the ball to Watkins which usually results in a difficult conversion attempt.

Sky sports app mentions that he will be out for AT LEAST 8 weeks, but doesn't mention what the injury is

Smiths reign was abit of a strange one.

For the first 18 months everything was the dogs bollox. But then things went west and weren't recovered until just before he left. There was alot of frustration and mediocrity sandwiched between those 2 sl wins. Remember blowing the treble in 2005? CC semi defeat to an average hudds in 2006? Or the playoff defeat at home to at the time an average warrington?

Smith's quality is producing teams that go out and play entertaining football - that entertainment more often than not results in winning rugby, which can in turn lead to trophies but not always inevitably in every competition as that would be unrealistic.

Warrington had won nothing of note for a long, long time prior to Smith replacing Lowes in March 2009. They'd got off to a disastrous start as Lowes imploded under the pressure - the televised shocker at home to Les Catalans (20 - 40), humiliation at Wakefield in round 3 (48 - 22) even Leeds managed to get out of Warrington with a win in Smith's first game in charge (12 - 20). The effort to impress the new boss backfired a week later with the nadir of the season at the Stoop (60 - 8 ) ending the opening five rounds plum last on the table without a win or a sign of a win in sight. Smith had to take Warrington apart in season and start from first basics. What followed was an up and down season but he'd got into the culture of the club and begun to overhaul it. He set the lead, you either followed it or you were gone. Warrington before Smith arrived had been a six to eight finishing team in recent seasons capable of beating the best and equally capable of losing to the worst the league had to offer.

Historically no Championship for a staggering 54 years and while they're still waiting they're finally contenders again, having also won a LLS and broke out of the mid-table non-descripts and into being one of the contenders. Smith took them backwards (helped by Lowes' awful start) to propel them forwards as they went from finishing 6th to 10th to 3rd to 1st to 2nd. Meanwhile in the Challenge Cup - this time a 35 year wait - won at the first attempt with two more added in the next three seasons.

Smith had won the final trophy open to him in the domestic game with Leeds and returned after an 18 month gap as the International supremo to win the next one available to him this time with Warrington. He turned Leeds from nearly men to winners in under a year and he did the same again in his next domestic role - getting two enormous monkeys off the respective club's backs in the process.

I remember us narrowly losing the 2005 GF to a Bulls team including the temporary services of Adrian Morley, a loophole which was quickly closed, but too late for us.

Disgraceful suggestions AGAIN on here that 'anybody' could have coached Leeds to the GF win in 2004. As tvoc explained, that was a massive achievement that no Leeds team had come near since the early 70s. Smith also replaced more than half the team between the 2005 and 2007 GFs.

Bluey OTOH won both GFs without a single big signing playing a part (Buderus being here but missing the GF). That would suggest that he inherited a quality team, and that if a Leeds team could have been coached by 'anyone' to win GFs, it was the team under Bluey. The fact that he got turfed after one season badly affected by injuries to JP and McGuire suggests that was possibly GH's view as well.