Gale signed after Bulls had been relegated in 2014. I am grateful for McD stunting his potential to such an extent that we got him for nowt.

The 2014 season was still ongoing and Bradford a SL team when Gale signed, trying to make out you got him from the Championship is exaggerated BS

I think that Luke Gale is a great SL player but i'm still waiting to see his first commanding display in a big game,he is sadly still way down the pecking order whilst compared to players like Danny McGuire,Rob Burrow & Sean Long etc who have been able to lift their game above the normal weekly SL rounds when needed.
Gale didn't really do much whilst playing for England in the WC despite being MOS,so atm Gale will only be remembered as a very talented SL player who unfortunately couldn't raise his game when he stepped up a level

For mine, McD's best stunting of Cas Potential was 07/10/17, You got nowt from him that evening, not so grateful for that one I'd guess

Watching him for England you can see Gale has some ability, but the difference between him and a top class halfback is the latter would at least try to impose themselves on a game and take the lead - in the final if not going well regardless of any coaching instructions.

people seem to think , and make out Powell is some sort of uber coach, but he has won nothing, he has done well at Cas no doubt but Cas are not the poor small town downtrodden club people make them out to be, Cas have always been able to draw top class players, there as big a club as severel others in super league and have always been a top 8-10 team minimum. bigger than Salford Hudderfield etr.
plus Powell had all the resources mcdermott had at Leeds and failed to win anything over 3 years. Powells a great coach but he is no better than Mcdermott and arguably not has good.

McDermott had two things Powell didn't experience and a side with a winning mentality.

Does Powell have the same will to win - he certainly did as a player that will be the test. Next season will be a good test of Powell's skill set

Yes i guess so, being good when your expected to be good is something else.

IMO Powell is a top bloke and a very decent coach. Things didn't go his way at HQ, but he was dropped into one of the biggest coaching jobs in SL. He's learnt his craft since that shaky start and has done a brilliant job with Cas. They will be there or there abouts next season and I reckon for a good few seasons thereafter. I'm happy enough with BM, but if at some point in the future DP was announced as his successor, which I doubt will ever happen, I'd be happy to see him back at HQ

Cas rubbed a lot of folk up the wrong way last year.

It will be interesting to see if they can have the same impact now teams will be gunning for them every game next season.

I was surprised by how many neutrals wanted a Leeds win in the GF pre game as they wanting Cas knocking down a peg or two from the cockiness people saw in them last year. Whilst the majority of neutrals still preferred a Cas win it wasn't as much of landslide especially considering Cas have been most people's 2nd team for a few years now and Leeds winning has been done to death for most neutrals.

Next season for them I think depends on the start, they carry on where they left off in the league then the runaway momentum and confidence that oozed out of their performances in 2017 with repeat. A hit & miss start or even a poor one then could very much start to feel like they missed their one great chance and might not be able to repeat it.

I'm sure he has the will but can he learn how to coach a team to put in a final winning performance? Leeds know how to play finals and is often a far cry to how we try and play during the season. Cas tried to play the GF pretty much the same as a league game and hope to blitz us with tries early as shown by the refusal of kickable penalties. As good as Cas' league performances were you hardly ever see those types of performances in finals.

I like Powell and the rugby he had Cas playing last season. But...my mate, who's a Fev fan, made a good point that Powell has a habit of walking it through the season but failing in finals. It'll be really interesting to see how he gets them going this year

They certainly did rub folk up when they got a bit too cocky and developed their swagger


Didn't see Galey strutting his swagger at OT though