I agree with much of your rant, Damo but think you've conflated criticism and abuse a bit. Not seen much of the latter towards McD - just plenty of monotonous criticism about lack of squad rotation, failure to play various young players...

Immediately after the St Helens game on Monday Rob Burrow said Leeds had taken their foot off the gas while Brian McDermott refuted the allegation when it was put to him and showed disdain for the question accusing those who use the term as lazy people who can't think of anything better to say.

In that situation I respect the honesty of one.

I know this would be a boring concept for fickle armchair coaches to grasp, but of the decisions made by the coaches only a small fraction of the information that goes into them is seen from 'the stands'.

Fans will continue to believe they know better regardless.

I think that's a bit unfair mate many posters offer genuine opinions and never claim to be "Coaches" nor should they expected to be either we love the sport and our Club.
Expressing opinions whether from the stands or an armchair is their right they pay their £££££ every week and to be fair what has happened performance wise and selection etc etc warraent discussion/opinions whether good bad or indifferent.
There's just as much over-reaction and put downs the other way when posters disagree with those opinions and it ends up tit for tat with insults and i disagree "we know best" from my own pov its always my "opinion" and i'm always chuffed to be proved wrong when negative because the team i support are doing well.

No, I know, and I don't mean to generalise as there are many who just discuss and speculate without crossing that line.

My comments were not directed at you rhinoms. We may disagree on several rugby issues but abuse is not your style.

What evidence do you have to respect the honesty of one and not the other then?

Both may have been giving their honest views albeit the views of the hooker and coach clearly conflicted.

Only one chose to to defensive and a little insulting to the interviewer though despite Bill Arthur only repeating what the Leeds hooker had said to him moments before.

The thread is asking for people to show some respect.

And always respectful?

This week's installment comes courtesy of the YEP online :

=#0000FF“Talking about that decision towards the back end, it was a very anal decision. Nobody was obstructed, it didn’t have an effect on the play. Whoever pressed the button understands the rules, but probably doesn’t understand the game.”

Rather than having a pop at the video referee, who it appears McDermott accepts made the correct ruling, could he not have trained his usual coherent and sensible comments towards the Leeds players who got their timing wrong and stuffed up whatever it was they were trying to engineer. Lead runner through the line (not parked in it) ball passed behind rather than run behind.

Some coach inspired planned moves in attack would make the off the cuff cock ups like these - with the resulting accompanying comments - redundant.

Whats this about?

I'm a busy lad and this is a fast moving forum. If it doesn't get reported chances are it'll go unpunished. You know what to do.

Can't believe I've not noticed this thread until now! But well said!!