regardless, yes he did not have large amount of experience, he did however win two titles and a cc final appearance, for me I think he didn't make wholesale rather than couldn't.

For me he will go down as one of our better managers. And I did have the privilage of meeting him away from rugby and he was a genuine really top bloke, he seemed to be a really good man manager, sort of a natural leader you would want.
Even eddie and stevo appeared to like him.

Top bloke wish him well and also wish mcdermott good luck

McDermott's strongest suit appears to be his ability to manage a team that possesses little financial clout.

I hope this ability isn't what brought about his return to Leeds.

Dbout it

Current ins/outs suggest reduced spending to me. However, a big name signing or two could quickly scupper that theory.

Leeds are lining up to trim spending to help pay for the new Southstand (no grants this time) and I would expect them to bring in another group of young players over the next couple of years. In a salary capped sport you simply have to do this if you want to have more than a "flash in the pan" success rate. We have done this before and the RL history books will look fondly on the outcome so I see no reason not to do it again.

Fair point, although much will depend on the young players' quality. If it's poor should we expect anything better than Harlequins' recent standard of results?

Agreed, but that IF is a mighty big one. We already have BJB, Watkins, McShane (and Hood), Ward, Ambler and Clarkson on the way through who all have a great deal of potential. That's without including the likes of Singleton etc who are also on the production line.

We need a coach who can turn these players into top quality SL players over the next few seasons, and I think / hope we have got one.

Touch wood we have, plus we have the likes of burgess ablett who will still be around

I'm not so sure you are correct with that first sentence. I don't think GH is trimming the spending of the first team in order to build the southstand.

I am confident we will still spend the salary cap as per the rules, which keeps in line with what we were doing. You also have to remember we finally got to a challenge cup final again this year, which can never be in the budget. It's been said many times before that for revenue purposes a Challenge cup final is worth 5 times more than the Grand Final is.

Reading it back, maybe I didn't put it too well. What I meant was I don't think we will see a Marquee signing for the next couple of years, as we will be looking to manage cost a bit better than we have been. GH has gone on record saying that the new SS will put the club back into debt, so he will be keen to repay that as soon as practically possible.

I agree we will spend to the cap, but I on't expect to see any transfer fees being paid for a while.

I would guess again that it would depend on whether we reach the CC final again next year. Like I said, the revenue from that is massive, and the club obviously do not budget for it.

They used to say that it was worth £500k to get there, and £1M if you win it. Only need to win it for the next 10 years and that's the new SS paid for then.....

Can't think why! We've been a shoo-in every year since '07!