Are you serious? You are suggesting that his coach has picked him to play on the wing as some kind of punishment for his social media activity?
Bizarre.

If I was Powell I'd be disappointed with that. Bombed as many chances as they took. Great to see a Leeds Academy half-back ripping it up out there.

Meanwhile across the gangway McDermott is giving the team the rest of the week off. Back in Monday morning lads.

I think We need bits of both. Until tonight I thought there was effort and some hope, however we look totally shot now and I can't see where they go next. This could get worse. The next 2 look like big defeats.

Possibly, he was happily picking Golding on the wing and Hardaker FB before that night on Twitter from him then it changed. If we had more backs fit he might have dropped him completely.

If this is the case, McDermott has completely lost it.

That might be true. We'll never know what the score would have been if Hardaker started at 1.

However I think it's terrible man-management in three ways.

1) For Hardaker. Putting a guy who is not without ego but has been outstanding into the least involved position in the team can only be taken as a deliberate humiliation.

2) For Holding. Unnecessarily exposing a young player at a delicate stage of his career to a vital position in a struggling team, with potentially very bad effects for his confidence and development.

3) For the rest of the team, who may be equally wrong-footed by the coach's decision and certainly suffer the effects of the team being deliberately weakened at a time when it needs all the help it fan get.

Has he? Would the decision be made by him alone considering club management too will have had a say? As a player you're representing your club at all times and Hardaker acted like a embarrassing tool and like I said is perhaps fortunate we have so many backs missing at the moments to not be dropped at all for that incident.

I'm hearing McDermott has resigned after giving his last speech in the changing room.

Source?

Text from one of the Cas players.
(Edit - not one playing tonight, but I would imagine in the dressing rooms).

Good win for us and normally I'd be buzzing but to be honest when I saw the team sheets I had a feeling it would be a big win for Cas and I feel a bit flat about it all. I've read and agree with a lot of the above posts but just to put things in perspective on the coaching discussion. Cas had 3 recent loan signings on the pitch, Larne Patrick, Danny tickle, and Paddy Flynn. Flynn had played one game this season, Patrick hadn't played many more and Tickle had been out for 9 months with a career threatening head injury yet all 3 slotted in seamlessly tonight.

I did notice that in his post match interview on the field that he had taken off his Leeds track suit that he had been wearing and was in "plain clothes"

Hardaker is very fortunate on several occasions not to have been sacked by the club. I'm of the opinion he should have been on each of those occasions but I understand the reasons why he wasn't.

Behaviourally, he's extremely high maintenance for the club and unless he's ripping it up for the team on the field and playing well, then he simply is not worth the effort of continued maintenance. Once the negatives begin to outweigh the positives he offers, it's time to go. That's why he'd currently be my first out of the door if a clearout is deemed necessary and the culture and atmosphere at HQ needs freshening up.

I've no idea whether McDermott is playing hardball with Hardaker but if he is, then surely he's within his coaching and management remit to do so if he believes it is justified?

Fully agree. Who do you think needs to go? Achurch is a goner and for me Falloon joins him on the plane with probably Delaney who has given his all but the injuries have caught up with him now. Walters is a million miles away from the required standard we should be bringing through, i don't know how he keeps making the 17.

Then we come to McGuire, Burrow and JJB. all at or approaching mid 30s now so how long do we keep trying to flog them or do we start afresh and build a squad around a new set of players and start on a new generation from this rock bottom position? Personally i would keep McGuire and Burrow around for another couple of years but JJB should probably make way at the end of the year (he is still giving his all for the club it has to be said right now but i would rather him go out on his own terms playing well rather than an injury down the line.

Then you have players who haven proven in years gone by that they are WC bracket.Hardaker,Hall and Watkins don't become bad players overnight but something seems to be badly missing, especially where Watkins is concerned.Does he need a fresh challenge? something is wrong he doesn't seem d to me and has hardly done anything of note all year so far, it is now quite alarming for a guy touted as one of the best centres in the World not that long ago.

You better hope for your sake you're right otherwise many on here won't ever forgive you for getting their hopes up

Wouldn't surprise me seeing his post match Sky interview and now the one on the Leeds website. Looked like he didn't want to defend the players with regards to the question about "effort" but felt he had to avoid saying anything controversial.

Maybe he hasn't lost the dressing room, maybe the dressing room has lost him and he just doesn't have the same motivation to lead this group of people as he did with the likes of Sinfield, Peacock and Leuluai.