Good question. He did it away at Featherstone in pre-season and did not come off straight away.

If this is true it’s very poor form from Leeds. They have a duty of care to the players as employees, and that would be a dereliction if that duty.

I highly doubt Sir Kevin Sinfield would have this wrong, of course it’s true

That's McDermott all over - consistently he has played players when they have been unfit and should have been rested.

But he hasn't been playing all year has he? He has only made the team sheet in 9 out of 27 matches playing just 422 minutes which is the equivalent of 5 and a bit games.

Peteru has only managed 135 minutes, Mullally 433 minutes so we have missed 3 big props for much of the season and one of the reasons for our poor performances.

Perhaps if they had got him fixed up properly in the first place then perhaps he would have had a more productive season. When you are siting Mulally as a contributory factor to a string of abysmal performances then you really are scraping the barrel in defending a coach who was in part the architect of his own demise

One down three to go

It sure is !

2 out of three npw

Toronto looked poor to me - a team of bottom four quality players.

Other than the venue I am unsure what they will add to the SL competition?

Halifax look so far out of the depth to be an embarrassment.

Toronto get to SL they'll sign some better players, obviously. But do they have enough to gain promotion?

Unfortun It’s does look that way, but we are in the same comp as you on a fraction of the money, so says little for the embarrassing season you’ve had.

Garbutt missed the first couple of games with a dead leg gained in pre-season he then injured his knee in his first game back. He had surgery on it which kept him out until June. He played 3 games in June and 3 games in July and now has had a second knee operation.

Knee injuries are common for rugby players and can be career ending for those carrying the sort of weight that big men like Garbutt carry. For you to imply that the club or doctors are responsible for not getting "him fixed up properly" smacks of a blame the club for anything agenda.

Mullally has been a regular in the match day 17 for a couple of seasons now, so why do you wish to dismiss his absence so lightly when it is on top of losing our other three big props for most of the season. (Galloway, Garbutt and Peteru). Playing without your big men is a huge disadvantage yet you think this has not been a contributory factor in the poor team performances this year.

At least Sinfield has had the benefit of Garbutt and Peteru being available for half his matches so far.

What I think is too much is being made out of the loss of pretty average props - Mulally would be nowhere near getting a place in any of the top 4/5 sides. His loss is not even worth considering when reviewing McDermott's performance.

Other clubs have had equal injury issues e.g. Hull and they haven't suffered anywhere near the calamatous season Leeds have had.

Galloway never started so cannot be included, he missed a big chunk of 2017 and he wasn't missed - so we are talking about Garbutt and Peteru, who let's face it has hardly pulled up a lot of trees since his return. You are simply looking for excuses to defend the indefensible.

Losing props is definitely a facvtor, but when you look at what happened, not at least signing a Crosby-esque player on loan was ridiculous. I don't care whose fault it was.

Whilst a problem, we saw Huddersfield put together wins without many big forwards, because they adapted their game to suit the players available. Leeds never showed the slightest sign of adapting. You won't beat top sides regularly lacking big forwards, but the bottom half of SL is made up of a lot of poor teams, and we should have been able to get some wins by playing better and smarter. That's poor coaching and a poor squad.