Quote: Andy Gilder "I thought Barrie Mac's role was less "hands on" coaching and more an overview as head of youth development. I'd say that was pretty much a full-time job at a club the size of Leeds. So if Plume is doing that, plus coaching the 19s, how much time does he have to commit to working with the first team?'"
You see I wouldn't say it was a full time job, especially as we don't have the u21's anymore which means all the academy are now part time.
IIRC the U19's train twice a week (occasionally 3 or twice and some gym/rehab) and the u16's once (though Plume doesn't oversee their training) plus a game. The actual coaching time is fairly minimal and not much more than an amateur club, we're talking 3-4 hours a week training plus a game.
Now obviously there's more than that goes into it from Plume and his staff but even if it was say 18 hours a week that Plume put in to the U19's that gives him more than half a working week to commit to the first team, and due to the u19's training being on an evening he's on hand during the day for the first team.
But significant parts of the first team training are also taken by Jason Davidson, he's heavily involved in the training.
So a combination of Plume, Eaton and Davidson assisting McDermott doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Especially as the team only "train" (as we would think of training ie team training out on the pitch) for approx 2.5-3 hours per week. The rest of their time is made up of weights, conditioning and rehab.
