It was becoming obvious that injuries was just a smokescreen for another example of players deciding when and for whom they wish to play.

The only players injured at Leeds who woukd make a difference at the moment are Watkins and Ward. The rest are filler.

They've discovered what we knew, that Myler isn't the answer when a team needs dragging round the pitch and the forwards suddenly look very ponderous and 12 months too old.

Maybe McDermott is partly to blame but if anyone at Leeds is thinking Sir Kev or St Peacock will be able to save the day, they might want to think again, find out what RU are offering Shaun Wane and double it. Shouting at them might succeed where Brian Macs dignity and patience have failed.

Perhaps Leeds and Wigan will be in competition for Agar

Pretty sure they will try for Powell.

Tony Smith?

Not sure he would get a super league side again.

He may go there as interim.

He may not get a top SL job again but I'm sure Widnes would welcome him.

Tony Smith won't come back to Rugby League until they scrap the video referee.

Thought it was when Hemmings left Sky.

Announcement tomorrow at 10am

Interesting point about McDermott, and Shaun Wane too.

We have complained a lot about our recruitment in the last few years of the TS era and the general view on here is that TS left us with a poor squad.

But how much stronger is the Leeds squad that McDermott is leaving behind, or the Wigan squad that Wane is leaving?

You could probably argue that we are stronger than Leeds, and about the same as Wigan.

It's not like our squad has been massively improved by post-TS signings either, although Charnley has been an outstanding addition, the others have been a bit hit and miss. Largely our encouraging first season under Price has been due to a resurgent performance in players who were already here.

The reality behind a lot of the criticism of TS and our squad declining over time is that there hasn't been the calibre of player available and this hasn't just affected us, we can see now how it has bitten Leeds. Although it does put in to context what a good job of recruitment Daryl Powell has done at Cas, in that in an era where talent has been scarce, he has rebuilt a team from bottom of SL to be a top side (despite having to deal with frequent losses of his best players, Chase, Clark, Solomona, Hardaker).

Compared to TS, Brian McDermott has been a serial winner, but I also think we can now reappraise the idea that TS earlier Warrington team was the best in the league in terms of talent and should have won the title but blew it when he came up against McDermott. Having that core of Sinfield, Burrow, McGuire meant Leeds really were the best equipped to win Grand Finals. TS won a couple of Grand Finals when he had those guys as well. It will be interesting to look at McDermott's future Grand Final record when he doesn't have those, if he is even ever involved in one again.

In fairness to McDermott though, a few coaches had a go with that Leeds squad and they achieved their best success under him, and he had more flak to deal with than any of the others. He comes across as a very impressive person and if he ended up turning up at Warrington one day as coach I would be happy.

Sally the difference is not the squad on paper but mental state they left with...
Our team were completely screwed up across a season.
Wigan have just regrouped after one hell of an episode in less than 2 months.
With Leeds I don't think there is a mental winning issue... more da javu revisiting the injury woes of 2016...they'll be strong before the middle 8s.

You're agenda for championing TS ain't going to get soaked up by us while our team is going so well.

Sinfield and Lowes. Interesting choices

Mmmmm... I can understand having Sinfield involved in some sort of role as his man-management of the players will be second to none. Not sure about the technical side of it though? James Lowes will need every bit of Sinfields measured communication skills when dealing with the players, maybe they think Lowes is very sharp tactically but we’ve not seen enough of him to know. I hope he deals with criticism better than he did when new to the role at Wire. He’s got huge boots to fill and the fans won’t have much patience.

James Lowes - I don’t think things will end well at Leeds. Maybe unfair as we only saw him for a short period but the pressure will mount quickly at Headingley if they don’t get off to a flyer.