The SHAMEFUL Treatment of Brian McDermott

I have been critical of McDermott of late but i agree it should never get personal to the man and i have never nor willl i ever boo any coach or player of Leeds. However criticism of McDermott's performance as coach i think is justified, fans have seen enough rugby over the years to be able to see how bad we are structurely in defence & attack. The defeat against Wigan highlighted just how big a gulf their is and i don't just mean the scoreline but in what we need to be doing as a team and what we are currently doing.

Quote: rhinowinorlose "
The players just do as they’re told, if they’re crap it’s down to the manager – think about why the players are under-achieving at the moment. This is nothing to do with the “plays” themselves, it’s because in every single game we’ve lost this year, we’ve missed tackles, knocked on, had a poor kicking game, and given away silly penalties. Anyone who really believes the players are being told to do this, frankly needs their head testing.
Quote: rhinowinorlose "]

I don't think i've seen anybody on here once suggest players are being told to be poor and commit knock-ons and miss tackles etc. but the fact is it is happening and way too much and you have to again look at the coach. If it was a few players then you can look at individuals but when its wide spread you have to question McDermott. Players should be getting coached to respect the ball more to lower the amount of knock ons. When tackles are being missed right across the team and especially in on the fringes you also have to question the defensive structure and also the desire of the player to make the tackle like we saw in the GF and WCC, if its a desire thing then McDermott needs to kick some backsides or drop them. The poor kicking game again come down to being poor structured in attack, lack of organisation and a slow play the ball usually allowing the opposition to put the kicker under pressure and result in a poor kick. Finally silly penalties, their are a few usual suspects in this department yet none are dropped and none show signs of stopping doing it, again McDermott needs to kick some backsides as he shouldn't allow certain players to make the same maistakes repeatedly.

Quote: rhinowinorlose "]The team were solely responsible for the back-end of last season – if this is true, why aren’t we performing now? Again, we are losing games because of the lack of basic rugby skills, not because the “plays” aren’t any good.
Quote: rhinowinorlose "]

I think to a large extent they were, but individuals can only get you so far and can't do it all the time and you have to start winning games through team efforts that are well organised by the coach. Too often we win games through individual performance of a few players, not too often over McDermott's reign can you say that 1-17 won that game for us. Also regarding some of the achievements with individual players, yes both BJB and Hardaker started off well but both seem to be moving backwards. I'm worried Hall and Watkins will suffer too from lack of being used correctly. Delaney has been a machine for us, but at the end of the day he is human and McDermott seems to of overused him this year and the poor guy seems to have hit a brick wall in recent weeks and could do with a rest.

I've said before that it was the correct decision not to be playing youngsters so far this year given the tricky fixture list we had for the first half of the season coupled with the WCC and CC games. But looking at the remaining fixtures i see a lot of opportunity to play a few younger players, only a few though i wouldn't go as OTT as some would on here. Ward to keep being involved if he's finished exams, Keinhorst in the centres and hopefully Singleton and/or D.Smith in a front row which looks are most problematic area. These fixtures i think really will determine whether or not this season should be McDermott's last and its not just a case of the result as many of the games you would expect to win, but how we play. If we can start looking like and playing as a team with structure and not 13 individuals randomly thrown onto a pitch in matching shirts hoping something will click and/or Burrow or McGuire will produce something special. We then have a few tough games at the end of the season away to Catalan and Hudds that will show if the team have learnt anything. Their is only so long a coach can come out after a game and say ''were not quite where we need to be''.