About 18 months into smith's reign things went rapidly west and weren't recovered until weeks before smith was leaving.

It was as if Smith went temporarily insane and went on some vindictive crusade to see how many big games he could get leeds to lose against teams they'd beaten comprehensively, sometimes weeks prior.

Losing the CC final....AND the grand final, in the space of a couple of months after dominating the regular season, even managing to finish second in the regular season. Then 2006 began to reach a climax and who could forget those embarrassing defeats to hudds and warrington (who at that time were poor) in the CC and playoffs respectively. Then in 2007 leeds managed to exit the CC at the earliest opportunity against an average wigan team, drop silly points in a poor league with little competition and fnish second.

At this point leeds had just over 2 years of inconsistent, sometimes bizarre performances and playing poorly/ losing big games. Despite their being little competition at the top, and leeds best players in their prime of life it felt as if leeds were completly throwing away their golden era and their chance of success.

Leeds were offered little in the way of explanation from dictator smith, except for unerving sometimes schizophrenic facial twitches and contortions.

Eventually, it appeared when the team could see light at the end of the tunnel and smiths departure in sight, they rallied in october 2007, brought home the bacon and so with smith's departure, the golden era began.

Smith gets a lot of credit for 2004, and rightly so. But it's important to remember that between then and 2007

- we never finished 1st
- we won 1 WCC and 1 GF
- had progressively worse results in the CC

and signed some amazing players like Shane Millard, Nathan McAvoy & Mark O'Neill.

Since being here, MacDermott has made

Hardaker
Jones-Bishop
Watkins
Singleton
Ward
Clarkson
Sutcliffe

regulars, has added several top players (Aiton, Briscoe, Moon) on a limited budget and has kept us at the top & winning things.

Don't forget Griffin, Hauraki, Vickery and Cross.

In the interest of balance.

Sorry for the edit but I couldn't read all that again.

That sounds terrible and yet despite all that under Smith Leeds won their first title for 32 years, qualified for and won their first WCC, finished top under a divisional structure for the first time, won a second Championship, never finished below 3rd in the Regular Rounds with an average top 2 finish over four campaigns, taking 74% of the points on offer in all comps (McClennan 72%, McDermott 66%), with an average result of 34-17 (McClennan 29-18, McDermott 28-21)

_____

As for the start of the golden era Brian McClennan couldn't really have heaped any more praise on the Smith legacy that he had the good fortune to inherit and maintain.

I can recall being stood in the South Stand one evening when Leeds were using the dressing rooms there for some reason so Tony Smith had to walk across the pitch at half time and a huge round of applause went out all around the ground. I have only seen that happen twice before, the last time being David Ward`s last game in charge.

However the seeds of change where planted and the blossoming of a Golden Era perhaps started before his arrival:

Weller Hauraki could and should have been a very good signing for Leeds but for whatever reason McDermott was unable to get the performance out of him that he had shown at Celtic and he continues to display now at Castleford. On Sunday he threw a one handed try-assisting pass that Lauitiiti in his prime would have been proud of.

Think Hauraki suits being the bigger fish in a smaller pond.

Only your anti-McDermott agenda would lead you to that conclusion. What I said was quite clear.

Brian McDermott was an excellent assistant coach with his contribution to Tony Smith's success in gaining promotion at Huddersfield and when he came with Smith to Leeds he played a big part in our important Championship success in 2004, the WCC in 2005 and a Grand Final appearance in 2005. Smith was named super league coach of the year in 2005 which also must reflect well on McDermott's contribution.



Smith was the coach when Hudderfield were relegated and I believe he still holds the record for a coach managing to keep his job after 13 consecutive defeats. As I said earlier McDermott joined Smith and assisted in gaining promotion.

When McDermott left Leeds for London in July 2006 Leeds form dropped off noticably with, I think, 4 defeats on the trott and a disappointing end to the season being knocked out in the prelim playoffs. No coincidence IMO.



You choose to allow Smith three coaching positions as proof of achievement (two of which crucially he had McDermott as assistant coach) and ignore his poor record with Japan and England and his failure to win a Championship so far at Warrington in five attempts? Whereas McDermott achieved Championship success and Cup Final appearances and a WCC win in his first two years.

McDermott had a difficult time in London as did Smith in his first year at Huddersfield. Most successful people have experienced a lack of success or even some failure in their careers before they earn their success. Indeed this can make them stronger. It must be wonderful for you to have never needed this experience in your own perfect and successful career tvoc.

However McDermott's lack of resources in London cannot be compared fairly with free spending Warrington. But fairness is not your stock in trade when pursuing one of your agendas is it?

Despite his overall lack of success in London McDermott did show his coaching skills as he got them into 4th position in June 2009 with good wins against both Leeds and Warrington. In the final part of this season they dropped down the table but this was I am sure dure to the lack of strength in depth.

McDermott also achieved some success in London in developing young players like McCarthy-Scarsbrook and our own BJB

Now you also made a point of saying McDermott took over a set of Champion players. Did we win the Championship in 2010? I must have missed that!

McDermott in fact took over an ex-champions side with many of the key players past their peak who had performed well below par under the previous coach in 2010. A season which was less succesfull than the 2013 season - which you have been deriding. He took over key players that were on the long term injured list with others badly out of form. Yet he managed to turn the season around and gain an historic Championship victory from 5th place. To repeat this in his second season shows both his metal and his coaching skills.

McDermott has not had the advantage of many top star signings either



As I have shown you Smith's legacy at two clubs in in part also McDermott's legacy too. Is it five seasons at Warrington without winning a Championship despite heavy recuitment? Whereas McDermott has won 2 Championships in 3 years with key players older and slower than in the Smith era.

I rate Smith as a good coach and I like the way he gets his teams to play. But you should not devalue McDermott's achievements at both Huddersfield and Leeds while assistant coach nor should you underrate his achiements as head coach at Leeds. Make no mistake he is also a very good coach.

I find that comparing coaches from different seasons is a bit futile really. No two seasons are alike in terms of opposition squads, our own squad, injuries, rule interpretations.

From my point of view the right coaches were brought in at that time. POwell was needed to start the transition from underperforming to being challengers with potential.

Smith took a promising team, and introduced better structures, and tactics and installed a sense of belief, whihc saw them champions. By the 4th season it had become stale and best all round when smith moved on. The GF win in his last game probably took him from being a successful coach that leeds fans will always be grateful to, to being a legendary coach who won not one but 2 titles which has deserted us for 3 decades before.

The squad knew how to play, and what their strengths were, they needed someone who would keep them fresh, and up for the challenge despite their recent success. Delivered results in silverware, though cracks started to appear in year 3, and with the poor end to the year was replaced. I think the appointment of McDermott was required for both a change in focus, but also to get a stricter regime in place. I always got the impression that the senior players ran the team with bluey just pepping them up to get the best out of them. McDermott was brought in to re-intrduce structure and order to things, whilst also seeing the transition of players like Webb, Senior and Ali from the team.

I have not always agreed with everything any of the coahces has done, but I can see they have all added something to the club, and done a pretty good job.

Remember, there have only been 4 years in the last decade where we haven't been champions. And 11 trophies in that time.

However, I agree with the above poster that having the same coach for a long time is not a great idea. I get the feeling that we should be due for a change. Not because McDermott is doing anything particularly wrong (even if I disagree with some approaches), but because to move forward you have to adapt and keep things fresh.

Good and fair points JC/Eagle.
Whoever came in after Bluey had one of if not the hardest tasks of ALL previous Coaches in that the squad needed to be re-inventing/updating.
What really gets me with our current Coach is how well he has achieved the transition within the back line including over-seeing the arrivals of Moon ,Hardaker and Briscoe but the Pack still remain imo the area in need.
Now to go into further detail Mc.D signed Moore and Griffin gave Amors departure the go ahead and re-signed Kirke and Leuleui.
That imo was wrong all across the board his selections of players clearly injured is verging on the ridiculous and again certain players are picked irrespective of form not just over a couple of games either months at a time.
I've no problem admitting i got it wrong during hsi first season and how he got us performing for back to back GF's and to reach Wembley demand and deserve respect and gratitude but there's still plenty that can and needs to be improved which he is firmly in control of.
Even now lookiing ahead whether it is Mc or someone else they have a hell of a job over-seeing the eventual departures of Sinfield ,JP ,Mags,JJb and Burrow but i think the work should have started in the pack alreadyso when we do lose JP and Jjb that impact is lessened to a certain extent yet at the moment we are still carrying Kylie and Kirke and the enigma that is Bailey.
We could easily see out the year and win the GF it wouldn't surprise me at all and the team are certainly capable of doing it but what then?
I just hope we aren't scratching around trying to replace 2 x Props ,1 BR & one of the golden triangle all at once.

Yeah it did help being given a quality NRL winger in Marcus Bai, he dropped Cummings for all of 2 games and he then featured in 21 of the remaining 26 league games (even being selected on the bench a couple of times).



Until we lost both 2005 finals, got knocked out by mid table teams in both comps 2006 and dropped back to 3rd even behind Hull, got knocked out of the 2007 CC by a mid table team and only nicked 2nd from Bradford courtesy of the Tansey Magic Weekend Try which if disallowed would've seen him have to attempt to win from 3rd, a very different prospect then for the legacy cementing 2nd GF win.

He did improve results versus Bradford. However at the end of 2004 we finished the season 15pts clear of Saints yet over the next three years they picked up 6 titles to our 2. Even Hull who we were 10pts clear of in 2004 had overhauled us by 2006.

McDermott has gotten stick for getting knocked out of the CC at the 5th Round stage this year but at least he got knocked out by a team who finished 1st in the SL table. Likewise his 2 final defeats came against the team who finished 2nd that year in the table. Smith got knocked out by the teams who finished 5th (2004 & 2005), 6th (2007) and when Hudds beat us in 2006 they placed NINTH in the table and had no big game experience under their belt at that time. McClennen got bettered by the teams finishing 1st (2008) 2nd(2009) and 3rd (2010).

Likewise for McDermott (and McClennen) missing out on the GF, well at least he got beat by the team that went on to win it and at least reach the Qualifying Semi to be 80 mins away from Old Trafford.
The only time in the last 11 seasons we haven't been at least 80 mins away from Old Trafford is when Smith got us knocked out by 6th placed Wire in the first week of the playoffs (again a team lacking in recent big game experience).

Saints had been so good over the previous 2 years heading into the 2007 GF (even managing the rarity of winning Sports Personality Team of the Year in 2006) and became the team the beat and fear (the role many thought we had taken hold of after 2004, but let slip so easily) that they we plenty of people doubting whether we could catch them and beat them, many thought not.



Do people care them nights McDermott has won at Old Trafford, no. But it didn't stop some of his detractors telling us "it's papering over the cracks" all the time.

Personally I don't think referring back to the 32 year gap for the title strengthens Smith's achievement. He, like any coach, should be judged for what he did in his years. For what he did in 2004, not what others failed to do in 1994, 1984 or 1974. I can understand it meaning more to fans who endured it, but weighing his achievements as a coach heavier because of others previous failures doesn't sit with me.

I would disagree that once a big club has fallen on hard times its a hard monkey to get of the back. Before it was constantly the year of the wolf, it was always the year of the rhino.