Quote ThePrinter="ThePrinter"Wins against Widnes (a) Halifax (a) and Toronto (h) would be enough and is doable despite our struggles. Have Salford at home but don’t fancy us to win ">that.'" We haven’t played well at Widnes for god knows how long, and following today’s result the Vikings will be desperate. I don’t see that as an easy win at all.

Quote ThePrinter="ThePrinter"Wins against Widnes (a) Halifax (a) and Toronto (h) would be enough and is doable despite our struggles. Have Salford at home but don’t fancy us to win ">that.'" We haven’t played well at Widnes for god knows how long, and following today’s result the Vikings will be desperate. I don’t see that as an easy win at all.

My take on McDermott leaving was that the club would have been OK with him staying until the end of the year but he forced the issue by refusing to budge, making them pull the pin instantly.



Management at Leeds clearly underestimated just how bad the squad has become, and also overestimated how much of an impact Sinfield might have. Sinfield's record is won 3, drawn 1 and lost 4 with average points against 30 per game, with 2 of the wins coming against M8 Championship teams and the other vs Widnes at home. Bag McDermott all you like (I will because I think he contributed hugely to the fall in standards over the past couple of seasons), but Sinfield's record is terrible.



We've seen virtually no improvement since he replaced McDermott. Defensively we're worse, which is very worrying because a lot of that is about attitude. With the benefit of hindsight we should have gone for someone with more experience and credibility alongside Sinfield, just to get us through this season.



I think we'll squeak through, avoiding the MPG as we should be able to win enough games, but I don't think anyone should be under any illusions as to how awful we currently are.

Quote wrencat1873="wrencat1873"! up 1 down seems a whole lot simpler, either a straight swap or by a "million pound game". The big issue for next season, if we change to 1 up 1 down, will be that the promoted side could have a very short lived SL existence as they will be favourites for the ">drop.'" Any form of Promotion will always have that. The way it is now we went up last year, finished above 2 other teams and could still be relegated. Leigh were promoted in '16 and didn't finish bottom in '17 and went down. Now that really isn't a fair system.

Quote wrencat1873="wrencat1873"! up 1 down seems a whole lot simpler, either a straight swap or by a "million pound game". The big issue for next season, if we change to 1 up 1 down, will be that the promoted side could have a very short lived SL existence as they will be favourites for the ">drop.'" Any form of Promotion will always have that. The way it is now we went up last year, finished above 2 other teams and could still be relegated. Leigh were promoted in '16 and didn't finish bottom in '17 and went down. Now that really isn't a fair system.

Quote BrisbaneRhino="BrisbaneRhino"My take on McDermott leaving was that the club would have been OK with him staying until the end of the year but he forced the issue by refusing to budge, making them pull the pin instantly. Management at Leeds clearly underestimated just how bad the squad has become, and also overestimated how much of an impact Sinfield might have. Sinfield's record is won 3, drawn 1 and lost 4 with average points against 30 per game, with 2 of the wins coming against M8 Championship teams and the other vs Widnes at home. Bag McDermott all you like (I will because I think he contributed hugely to the fall in standards over the past couple of seasons), but Sinfield's record is terrible. We've seen virtually no improvement since he replaced McDermott. Defensively we're worse, which is very worrying because a lot of that is about attitude. With the benefit of hindsight we should have gone for someone with more experience and credibility alongside Sinfield, just to get us through this season. I think we'll squeak through, avoiding the MPG as we should be able to win enough games, but I don't think anyone should be under any illusions as to how awful we currently ">are.'" That’s the way I see it. The rebuild job is so big you need someone with experience to do it. Appointing Sinfield and Lowes is a very high risk strategy since neither of them are proven. While I expect you to stay up it could be very close and it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that you’ll end up in the MPG which is very much a lottery. If you do stay up I’d say you need to bring in an experienced head coach. The Leeds situation reminds me of when McNamara got the Bulls job in 2006. He had to manage a huge transition yet had next to no experience to fall back on. He made plenty of mistakes along the way. Had we gone for someone more experienced our fall from grace might not have been so bad.

Quote BrisbaneRhino="BrisbaneRhino"My take on McDermott leaving was that the club would have been OK with him staying until the end of the year but he forced the issue by refusing to budge, making them pull the pin instantly. Management at Leeds clearly underestimated just how bad the squad has become, and also overestimated how much of an impact Sinfield might have. Sinfield's record is won 3, drawn 1 and lost 4 with average points against 30 per game, with 2 of the wins coming against M8 Championship teams and the other vs Widnes at home. Bag McDermott all you like (I will because I think he contributed hugely to the fall in standards over the past couple of seasons), but Sinfield's record is terrible. We've seen virtually no improvement since he replaced McDermott. Defensively we're worse, which is very worrying because a lot of that is about attitude. With the benefit of hindsight we should have gone for someone with more experience and credibility alongside Sinfield, just to get us through this season. I think we'll squeak through, avoiding the MPG as we should be able to win enough games, but I don't think anyone should be under any illusions as to how awful we currently ">are.'" That’s the way I see it. The rebuild job is so big you need someone with experience to do it. Appointing Sinfield and Lowes is a very high risk strategy since neither of them are proven. While I expect you to stay up it could be very close and it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that you’ll end up in the MPG which is very much a lottery. If you do stay up I’d say you need to bring in an experienced head coach. The Leeds situation reminds me of when McNamara got the Bulls job in 2006. He had to manage a huge transition yet had next to no experience to fall back on. He made plenty of mistakes along the way. Had we gone for someone more experienced our fall from grace might not have been so bad.

I see some people are still blaming the system for their teams predicament. If you're "good enough" to finish 9th, then you should be good enough to avoid the MPG. Teams that go down in this system or any other system only have themselves to blame. It's not about what's fair, everyone knows what they've signed up for. icon_rolleyes.gif" alt="icon_rolleyes.gif" title="Rolling Eyes" />

I see some people are still blaming the system for their teams predicament. If you're "good enough" to finish 9th, then you should be good enough to avoid the MPG. Teams that go down in this system or any other system only have themselves to blame. It's not about what's fair, everyone knows what they've signed up for. icon_rolleyes.gif" alt="icon_rolleyes.gif" title="Rolling Eyes" />

Quote BrisbaneRhino="BrisbaneRhino"My take on McDermott leaving was that the club would have been OK with him staying until the end of the year but he forced the issue by refusing to budge, making them pull the pin instantly. Management at Leeds clearly underestimated just how bad the squad has become, and also overestimated how much of an impact Sinfield might have. Sinfield's record is won 3, drawn 1 and lost 4 with average points against 30 per game, with 2 of the wins coming against M8 Championship teams and the other vs Widnes at home. Bag McDermott all you like (I will because I think he contributed hugely to the fall in standards over the past couple of seasons), but Sinfield's record is terrible. We've seen virtually no improvement since he replaced McDermott. Defensively we're worse, which is very worrying because a lot of that is about attitude. With the benefit of hindsight we should have gone for someone with more experience and credibility alongside Sinfield, just to get us through this season. I think we'll squeak through, avoiding the MPG as we should be able to win enough games, but I don't think anyone should be under any illusions as to how awful we currently ">are.'" McDermott is way down the list of people to blame. Gets stick for the current makeup of the squad but he’s not the one writing the cheques and do you really think Ormondroyd, Aston, Yates etc. were top of his wish list. A ridiculous rumour came out this yeah that GH tried to improve the squad but McDernott refused saying he was happy with what he had. You only have to look at those aforementioned signings and what clubs they came from (DR clubs and GH’s favour to his old club) to see that McDermott couldn’t stop GH from making signings if he wanted to. He lost Sinfield, Peacock, Leuluai, Hardaker from his treble squad with nothing coming in and still won another title. He then lost McGuire and Burrow and we were still going ok this year for the first half of the regular season. With those departures then 5th place after 13 rounds only a point off the playoffs with most of your props missing most of the season was a bloody great effort and the games we did lose were extremely narrow with 3 one pointers. Things started to turn funnily enough straight after the release of As Good As It Gets which I thought considering the club were involved in its production was a disgrace to have two former players in Sinfield & Burrow criticise the current coach halfway through this season (the latter being part of the club staff). His major crime was he demoted one to the bench (which turned out to be a master stroke and in part because Sinfield wanted to play HB) and the other got dropped for 2 games and he made such a meal of it in the film making out like he was ditched for months and keeping a diary of everything that was said. Given he’s now going on about “internal competition” and having to play well to keep your shirt he’s a hypocrite for sulking because he did start that 2015 playing awful. Low and behold results and seemingly effort starts going south and those two guys several weeks later are stepping into the breach with Sinfield’s DOR role and Burrow involved with the first team now. McDermott sacking announced on Monday and Sinfield announced shortly after with loads of GH roles going to him. Anybody who doesn’t think this was in the pipeline for at least several weeks is naive. People say McDernott lost the players, I disagree. The club lost the players. For all the criticism of them they did finish 2nd last year and win the GF. This year they went away to places like Wire and Saints where we rarely ever win and came up with results. Losing by only narrow margins often only down to goalkicks, even though the score line against Melbourne was one sided no one could fault the effort.....compare that to now, now McDermott has gone. Yet Sinfield has the cheek to say the ethos was wrong and it’s a happier place and say players are trying harder to return from injury all in a bid to lay blame and belittle the previous coach, which would work if performances under Sinfield hadn’t become much worst and the defence which is about attitude has become embarrassing. This coup d’état mid season to oust McDermott and GH by their long held ditractirs at the club is why we’re in this mess.

Quote BrisbaneRhino="BrisbaneRhino"My take on McDermott leaving was that the club would have been OK with him staying until the end of the year but he forced the issue by refusing to budge, making them pull the pin instantly. Management at Leeds clearly underestimated just how bad the squad has become, and also overestimated how much of an impact Sinfield might have. Sinfield's record is won 3, drawn 1 and lost 4 with average points against 30 per game, with 2 of the wins coming against M8 Championship teams and the other vs Widnes at home. Bag McDermott all you like (I will because I think he contributed hugely to the fall in standards over the past couple of seasons), but Sinfield's record is terrible. We've seen virtually no improvement since he replaced McDermott. Defensively we're worse, which is very worrying because a lot of that is about attitude. With the benefit of hindsight we should have gone for someone with more experience and credibility alongside Sinfield, just to get us through this season. I think we'll squeak through, avoiding the MPG as we should be able to win enough games, but I don't think anyone should be under any illusions as to how awful we currently ">are.'" McDermott is way down the list of people to blame. Gets stick for the current makeup of the squad but he’s not the one writing the cheques and do you really think Ormondroyd, Aston, Yates etc. were top of his wish list. A ridiculous rumour came out this yeah that GH tried to improve the squad but McDernott refused saying he was happy with what he had. You only have to look at those aforementioned signings and what clubs they came from (DR clubs and GH’s favour to his old club) to see that McDermott couldn’t stop GH from making signings if he wanted to. He lost Sinfield, Peacock, Leuluai, Hardaker from his treble squad with nothing coming in and still won another title. He then lost McGuire and Burrow and we were still going ok this year for the first half of the regular season. With those departures then 5th place after 13 rounds only a point off the playoffs with most of your props missing most of the season was a bloody great effort and the games we did lose were extremely narrow with 3 one pointers. Things started to turn funnily enough straight after the release of As Good As It Gets which I thought considering the club were involved in its production was a disgrace to have two former players in Sinfield & Burrow criticise the current coach halfway through this season (the latter being part of the club staff). His major crime was he demoted one to the bench (which turned out to be a master stroke and in part because Sinfield wanted to play HB) and the other got dropped for 2 games and he made such a meal of it in the film making out like he was ditched for months and keeping a diary of everything that was said. Given he’s now going on about “internal competition” and having to play well to keep your shirt he’s a hypocrite for sulking because he did start that 2015 playing awful. Low and behold results and seemingly effort starts going south and those two guys several weeks later are stepping into the breach with Sinfield’s DOR role and Burrow involved with the first team now. McDermott sacking announced on Monday and Sinfield announced shortly after with loads of GH roles going to him. Anybody who doesn’t think this was in the pipeline for at least several weeks is naive. People say McDernott lost the players, I disagree. The club lost the players. For all the criticism of them they did finish 2nd last year and win the GF. This year they went away to places like Wire and Saints where we rarely ever win and came up with results. Losing by only narrow margins often only down to goalkicks, even though the score line against Melbourne was one sided no one could fault the effort.....compare that to now, now McDermott has gone. Yet Sinfield has the cheek to say the ethos was wrong and it’s a happier place and say players are trying harder to return from injury all in a bid to lay blame and belittle the previous coach, which would work if performances under Sinfield hadn’t become much worst and the defence which is about attitude has become embarrassing. This coup d’état mid season to oust McDermott and GH by their long held ditractirs at the club is why we’re in this mess.