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.

Is he a denominator in the period of success that saw Leeds win two Grand Finals under their new coach, achieved after regular season finishes of first and second rather than fifth and fifth?

The "former champions who had lost the plot" then finished fourth in the regular season, were runners up at Wembley, and fell one match from the grand final despite being without their two best-performing players of the time.

I await your judgement of how much the plot has been lost should any or all of these benchmarks not be achieved in Brian McDermott's third season.

Maybe the title was a tougher proposition between 2004-2006 than it was later, i.e the opposition was better? That could've influenced the relative success under Smith.

The way I see it Powell built the side and made them into contenders. Smith made them winners. But no side wins all the competitions all the time. Despite not doing much in 2005 and 2006 you still made one GF and won a WCC. Since then the team has gone on and dominated SL, nobody has really come close to consistently matching Leeds when it matters. Losing the plot???

I think this post has been misinterpreted. It just lacks one colon and it starts to make sense. Observe...

From somebody usually quite keen on stats and evidence, this scans as hyperbole really. Is the claim that Leeds haven't been coached since 2007 something you can actually justify?

I have no intention of getting into a debate on the relative merits of Smith and McDermott. They arrived at very differnet times in the club's development to do very different jobs. I would still make a case myself for Smith being the better coach in that context, but it's a big leap from there to dismissing any coaching role from 2 pretty successful successors.

Yes turned them into champions....he then turned them back into underachievers, before getting it right on GF night '07, something McDermott does and is criticised still.

The way people paint it is that whoever took over after Smith COULDN'T fail, when they so easily could've. At the start of 2008 he left behind a squad still deemed 2nd best to Saints (as shown by the LLS and CC Semi). Over time McClellan installed a fight in them that Smith couldn't and did what he couldn't....finish above a competitive and strong Saints team in the league table.

People might be waiting for McDermott to achieve something with 'his own side'.....well I'm waiting for Smith to go somewhere without the luxury of big signings and 'do it tough'......but in reality he'll probably end up at Salford if Koukash can deliver on big signings. No coach since the beginning of 2004 has been given more luxury in terms of player recruitment yet he's only won 2 out of a possible 7 GF's.

As for the culture HE introduced, are we going to forget the roles Dean Bell, Darryl Powell & GH played in it before Smith even arrived. Smith praised for his ruthlessness, yet who went out and got him and ditched Powell in possibly the most ruthless move at the club over the last decade?

I reckon quite a few coaches could've come and achieved the same amount as Smith over those 4 years, whether it be they had to wait until the latter years to pick up the chunk of the 5 titles Smith managed. I think less coaches could've won the GF back to back in the last 2 years (even if they finished higher in the table), certainly not Smith who has failed in 3 straight attempts with Wire even though they play the better rugby and finished higher in the league. If coming into a new club at the right time and moulding them into GF winners is Smith's quality....then why hasn't he done it at Wire? He again has been 'given' the resources to do so. The last 2 occasions his Harlem Globetrotters haven't been able to beat The Idiot and his OAP's. Is it because of the vast playoff experience Leeds have?......Well so did Bradford in the 2004. The personalities and characters of the likes of Sinfield, JJB and Peacock, so key to our success weren't moulded by Smith.

Any news on Watkins injury yet