A decent coach wouldn't put up with all the arm waving, penalty begging, referee back chatting that this team has been doing for the last few season.

Somewhere on this board I read about how when Smith first arrived at Leeds (and Warrington I think) the first thing he did was teach players how to catch and carry the ball. With a few better carries on Friday we'd have scored more than 6 points. Without giving away silly penalties in the second half we wouldn't have conceded so many points. Yep we might not be winning more games but at least we'd be competing.

I can take a loss, but I can't take been blown away by teams that on paper aren't that far away from us. Wigan, Huddersfield, Saints and now Warrington. I'm not saying we should have beaten them, but we should have been closer to them than we were.

Dropping Clarkson, Burgess and McShane was stupid, and so was putting Robbie Burrow on the bench. It was like he wanted us to lose the game, putting in form players out of the team and letting players who haven't hit any form at all have a go.

McDermott needs to go. If he wants to ruin a club that were challenging for trophies, he's going the right way about it!

Agree the most stance decision that has been made wasthe leaving out of in form players

Too right Brisbane! A good coach enables players to play to potential, uses their strengths and lessens the effect of their weaknesses by adopting a sensible gameplan - none of which happened on Friday and is the most noticeably missing feature from our recent games. Over recent weeks there is an air of casualness and lack of determination, particulary evident in a few players (eg BC and WH) which nullifies the efforts of the rest who don't know how to play with anything less than 100%. This is what was is so disappointing. The coach has to take responsibility for that and deal with it. I don't hold out any hope for Friday because I don't think McD even knows how to deal with it.

Wasn't impressed with post match interview on friday from sky

How recent are you talking about? Ben Cross (assuming that's who BC refers to) hasn't played for over a month

In your humble opinion of course!


We would of been better defensively for a start with a more tactically aware coach and also had better discipline.
C'mon D when you think back to thoses matches a bit more structered defence with more composure and better discipline would of beaten the Pies and Saints at the very least.

It's called "Clutching at Straws" mate, that's what your doing and others.

We are talking about a group of players who have been playing together for a number of years now. A group of players who have won 4 championships, and played in numerous finals. We are not talking about a bunch of kids, or players new to the game. If these players do not know how to organise themselves in defence, when not to offload a ball, when to respect possession, and getting themselves motivated, then they have gone further backwards than even I think. A coach is not out on the park with them, and was not out on the park with them through McClennan, Smith, or Powells reign.

It is ironic how conveniently some have forgotten the contribution credited to McDermott during Smith's reign, and no doubt the very same posters calling for him now were the ones saying when he left and we had a dodgy spell how we missed him. What's changed? The players certainly put a lot down to him previously.

There is no doubt that questions need to be answered about our current coaching set up, let's be clear on that. But people are just in fantasy, if they seriously believe that our current playing set up would see us challenging for the trophy's again, regardless of coach.

nobody said challanging for a trophy, people said we would do better.
if you think smith, brown, mcguire, lang or murray wouldn't improve us then i think you are badly wrong

Why do you think it's down to the coach if players choose to fly out of the defensive line, or lose patience with the match officials and start giving away penalties - neither of these areas are exclusive to McDermott being in charge, both were being pointed out as failings of the team under both Smith and McLennan?

Difference under the other two is that the players still had the hunger and natural ability to dig themselves out of the holes they had created. Once your abilities start to decline, it's harder to cover up the other deficiencies in your game. A number of this Leeds squad are in decline but have benefitted from Hetherington showing an unusual. irrational level of loyalty. Hopefully some of the recent results will have given the CEO a timely reminder that sport has no place for misguided loyalty.

If the players were deciding their own defensive and attacking structures we wouldnt have need for a coach. But they dont, different teams employ different tactics. We this season are employing different tactics to what we employed last season. Some of those arent working.

The players probably do know when to offload and when not, when to respect possession and when to throw it about a bit, how to tackle, but other coaches have evolved and know when our players think its the right time to do these things and how we are going to go about it, they know our defensive structure and what to do to give themselves the best chance of getting around it so we will struggle to beat them.

With better structures, both attacking and defensive our players will have a better chance of performing to the best of their abilities with the converse true for the opposition.

There is no reason this squad of players cannot challenge for trophies. They won the league less than two seasons ago, for the third time in a row. You dont lose that level of quality in the space of two seasons through normal attrition. These players are capable of challenging, winning is another matter, but challenging certainly.