Of course you can argue with his desperate point, if you were capable of opening you eyes and not just seeing black & white.

Had McDermott been the coach instead of Smith, this era of success would never have happened. Smith developed those players what have delivered success in spite of McDermott been at the helm. By comparison players are regressing under McDermott which proves the point.

That point made is the equivalent of using an arcade bandit where someone has been putting money in all day without hitting the jackpot. Then first shot you win. Does that make you a better player of one harm bandits? Or just lucky to be in right place at right time?

When McDermott manages to be successfull with his own team, then you can dribble with admiration.

Had McDe.......could have, would have, should have. Ifs, buts and maybes. Irrevant conjecture, which proves nothing unless you don't understand the meaning of "prove"
Results are black and white. They are binary. Win or lose. Under McDermott, we've won the big price two times out of two attempts.

He said you cannot argue with the results. Of course, you can argue with them if you want to resort to illogical gibberish and supposition. Which leads to....

Which era of success? Smith won two GFs in years, Bluey won 2 in 3 years. McDermott has won 2 in 2 years. Which players did Smith develop? He inherited Sinfield, McGuire, Burrow, JJB etc etc. Many of last years GF squad didn't play 1st team rugby under Smith.


You argue with the statistics of trophies given by the Printer and use this as an argument. At the risk of being accused of bullying by the more sensitive souls (of which I know you're not one) that is old fashioned frontier gibberish.
You can use that argument against Smith (powell's team) or Mclennan (Smith and Powells team). It's a non argument.

Don't pretend you weren't bludging and cloud watching well before McDermott's tenure.

6 (Achurch, Delaney, Hardaker, Moon, Moore & Vickery) of the first team squad of 25 have been signed after Smith left the club. 4 of these signed during McDermott's tenure.
Another 9 players (Clarkson, Hood, Jones-Bishop, Keinhorst, McShane, Singleton, Sutcliffe, Ward & Watkins) made their debuts having come through the academy after Smith left the club. 5 of these have made their debuts under McDermott.
10 of the current squad (Ablett, Bailey, Burrow, Hall, JJB, Kirke, Leuluai, McGuire, Peacock & Sinfield) of 25 played under Smith. Of those, 3 (Kirke, Leuluai & Peacock) were signed by Smith and 2 (Ablett & Hall) made their debuts under Smith. Although I would credit him at least partially with the development of JJB.

The current team is at best 40% Smith. Which of those players have regressed under McDermott? Which of those players have regressed simply because they're 5/6 years older than they used to be?
Which players have improved? I'd suggest at least Ryan Hall has. But then you wrote off Ryan Hall.

Most of my bludging and cloud formation studies were way back. I can assure you that I've only attended and paid twice during McDermott's tenure during the regular season, and both of those were WCC fixtures. If the current coach and the team can't be d with the regular season SL games, then neither can I.

So its just down to luck then?

Ok how about the luck that Smith had that the gap between the NRL and SL Salary Caps wasn't as big back then.

They'd be no Webb or Lauitiiti for sure, no Toopi, Donald, Leuluai or Bai. And given that quite average forwards like Mike Cooper are able to get a gig in Oz then I doubt we'd have even seen Peacock or Ellis at Leeds. Was he responsible for the signings like Senior or Furner who played a bit part in the '04 success? The likes of Sinfield, Burrow, McGuire, Diskin, Calderwood, Walker, Bailey all first framers before he arrived.

I'd say that if any of the last 3 Leeds coaches was lucky it was Smith, that he didn't deliver more when he should've given his resources shows he wasnt the be all and the end all.

Oh and if McDermott gets stick for playing players in 'wrong positions' then remember Sinfield did sometimes play 6 under Smith, also Smith often played JJB at prop (even in 2006 with Peacock at 2nd Row).

Being.

And McDermott isn't the problem.

Yes Smith turned them into champions (how long the club had gone without is irrelevant because it wasn't like it was the same group of players failing for 3 decades) with a quick treble of LLS & GF '04 & WCC '05 (which they almost blew against an Canterbury team that gave much less of a damn than the last few NRL teams have)......he then quickly turned them back into underachievers by failing to push on and show that something that the best sports individuals/teams have - desire to repeat and repeat success.

10 targets went unfulfilled from between the '05 WCC & '07 GF. Throughout that period the team looked like one content with past glories and lacking the necessary hunger to keep picking up silverware. Whatever people think of McClellan and McDermott tactically, they did install a fight and hunger in their teams to keep wanting to win stuff, a task that was as hard as any a coach has faced because after winning it so many times it was easy for the desire to fade away and be content with 3,4 or 5 GF Rings.

That's the problem with Tony Smith as a coach.....his teams lack fight. Everything was fine if Plan A was going fine and we could play our attractive rugby, when things didn't go to plan we looked poor.
Since Smith left we've won 4 of 5 GF....all of them tight contests we really had to battle. If Smith had stayed I say we win possibly 2 out of last 5 GF.

Not just as individual players but also as a collective - which is essential in a team sport. Past failures weren't always through a lack in quality but through a lack of togetherness, the team is bigger than the individual. Smith was the right appointment at the right time. All Leeds' recent success at 1st grade level dates back to the culture he introduced. It's a culture that the core players continue to exhibit long after Smith's departure, it's a culture he went on to introduce at Warrington - another massively under achieving club who have made great strides.

Smith didn't inherit winners - he inherited potential and blended that with the necessary experience, McClennan and McDermott inherited Champions and as long as the core remain it's impossible to right off this group of players but they won't be around forever to win it from '5th' for the token figurehead - who questions referees understanding of the game as if that will result in 50/50 calls going Leeds way.

Some good points TVOC but id honestly say that a lot of the"togetherness" was born in the Acadamy teams most played in and also Powell showed with his no BS approach to the team cull he over saw that no-one was bigger than the team.

You simply can't belittle the magnitude of Smith's achievements with the side in 2004. Especially given our efforts in 2003, when Leeds were probably the second best team in the league yet completely incapable of matching Bradford.

That said, Smith's tenure from the 05 WCC to the 2007 GF was incredibly frustrating, especially as we had effectively the same team and had added the likes of Ellis, then Peacock, Webb etc. As much as the last regular season and a half have been similarly frustrating, at least we've achieved something under McDermott - which makes the 2005 season seem all the more futile in hindsight.

If anything we seemed to have the best of both worlds under McClennan - maintaining league form and winning pots, yet for some reason he is not treated with the same esteem as Smith or McDermott (hence not being inducted into the SS.com Hall of Fame...). 2010 was disappointing, but no more so than 2005 IMO.

I don't think there's a clear winner in this debate, however fun it is. While each coach has had his successes and failures, at the end of the day we've had an embarrassment of riches in this department since Powell. And long may it continue. We've come a long way since the dreaded Laughton days - the height of our underachievement IMO.

Indeed. And some of the credit for this tough winning culture should go to McDermott who, as assistant to Smith, played a key role, as I personnaly observed on more than one occassion at the time.



McDermott did not inherit champions. He inherited former champions who had lost the plot. BM is an important common denominator in both these periods of success.