Every successful team has a Roy Powell.

It does but if you have too many of them your team is no longer successful. There is a place for hard work and toil but there is no substitute for class and talent.

Yep its called balance, but both types of player can still be greats, after we could have an entire thread on players who had class and talent, but still never really made it, either from bad career choices, injury, bad attitude, laziness or just plain bottle. Been by a few mention in here who fit into the latter category.
For every Roy Powell there’s Paul medley
JJB theres Chris feather etc.

For every JJB there's a Sinfield, McGuire, Ali, Senior and Webb - that is about the right balance - 5:1

Mal Reilly picked Roy Powell to tour down under twice. He was a regular in the Test team in the late 80s and 1990. Reilly knew all about how tough you needed to be in the pack.

Powell's job wasn't to intimidate. It was to be rock solid in defence and take the ball up strongly. If there was an occasional offload then all the better.

In the 80s he was the best and most consistent forward at Leeds. Laughton won bugger all at Leeds so letting Powell go was hardly a master stroke and he was sight better than a lot of those he brought in.

harmon, howard, faimolo , mann, eyres seemed to leave something back in lancashire

Faimalo, Mann, arguably Eyres yes; Harmon and Howard were good, effective signings.

None of them particularly deserve to be mentioned on this thread though.

he did bring sinfield in as well - forgot goodway in list of dodgy lancastrians

Is that Lancastrians with a silent W?

they certainly don't apart from the context of being inadequate replacements for roy

where were you on the medley / dixon debate , guessing a dixon fan --also good in the 1990 test , played above his weight but medley had the touchline tries returning kick offs

Medley was that era for Leeds in a nutshell. Could do some sensational things but had no heart and when things got tough was nowhere to be seen. He would make 3 tackles from marker and then do zilch for an hour. Soft but he could score from 60m and make an impact from bench too. Not exactly a grafter wasnt the lad tho.

Dixon was a much better player than Medley in my opinion but they was totally different players. Dixon had heart and fight. He played mainly at prop while Medley was a wide running 2nd rower and an even wider running defender.

Medley had Box Office, but also taught Leon Pryce all he knows about hide and seek. Dixon on the other hand used to lamp his cows if they we’re misbehaving. Totally different creatures.

Dave Heron was my favourite Leeds player from that era.

as a player to watch would pick ahead of sinfield but the fallow years may
stop him getting in hall of fame

Heron was crying out for a pack with some enforcers in it. Remember him doing OK at six too. On a slightly different note I think Craig Izzard (sadly briefly) made the biggest instant impression of any of our imported forwards. He was a belter.