Re: For the live of God,Allah or whoever-McDermott GO!!! : Sun Sep 23, 2012 10:34 am  

I actually think McDermott is a decent coach and I think a decent bloke.
My gripe is that he has had many opportunities to rotate the squad and keep some of our crown jewels fresh and ready for the play offs/ CCF.
To continually play forwards who are shot has not helped our cause.
To continually play some players clearly out of form such as JJB and drop players who have been in form such as Moore is somewhat bemusing.
Now we might end up with yet another GF win.
But we have without doubt made life difficult for ourselves.
Maybe McDermott sees this like a horse race and we are handicapped to the full to allow other lesser teams like Wigan the chance to compete

Re: For the live of God,Allah or whoever-McDermott GO!!! : Sun Sep 23, 2012 11:20 am  

chapylad wrote:

But we have without doubt made life difficult for ourselves.
Maybe McDermott sees this like a horse race and we are handicapped to the full to allow other lesser teams like Wigan the chance to compete [/color]

Finishing 5th is no handicap - it's wonderful. It's the lightest and most productive weight to be carrying around into the proper semi finals next week

Re: For the live of God,Allah or whoever-McDermott GO!!! : Sun Sep 23, 2012 5:10 pm  

William Eve wrote:

Finishing 5th is no handicap - it's wonderful. It's the lightest and most productive weight to be carrying around into the proper semi finals next week

Yeah. you get to play each week so you aren't in danger of being underdone, but the teams you are drawn against are sufficiently crap to ensure you progress.

The only downside is playing away in the final semi.

Re: For the live of God,Allah or whoever-McDermott GO!!! : Sun Sep 23, 2012 6:09 pm  

AJC wrote:

Neither can Leeds expect to win any remaining play-off game unless the discipline improves. Was it 15 pens against Catalan. Give Wigan/Saints that sort of chance and there's no hope. Not even for the dirtiest team in the world. Apparently.

Leeds had a low error count on Friday, I expect Les Catalans' was much higher. I counted four Leeds knock ons but only the Peacock one in the second half came when clearing the ball in our own half.

Giving penalties away is a bad habit but sometimes they can buy time to organise defensively and save tries rather than always conceding. Also a penalty conceded early in the tackle count close to your own line comes with no real down side attached.

Losing possession before reaching a clearing or attacking kick is rarely a good thing by comparison.

Leeds and Warrington both played some good, play-off winning football this weekend and should go forward in good heart for the rightly tough Qualifying Semi-Finals to come.

Re: For the live of God,Allah or whoever-McDermott GO!!! : Sun Sep 23, 2012 8:49 pm  

As TVOC alludes on the previous page, I am rarely surprised at the results this champion group of players continue to pull out. Yet I am continually surprised the coach is at the helm of teams that keep reaching finals.

Make of that what you will.

Re: For the live of God,Allah or whoever-McDermott GO!!! : Sun Sep 23, 2012 11:08 pm  

Same here.

I still don't think we've done enough this year for it to be called a good one - the WCC, one decent performance in the Challenge Cup and one play off win HAVE to be balanced against too many dire perforances during the weekly rounds and another poor cup final effort. I'd probably think differently had we not been humiliated more than once this season, but to ignore those results as somehow irrelevant would be a mistake.

IMO we need a decent performance against Wigan (at the very least a narrow loss) to be able to say the season was a good one.

Judging by GH's comments that would seem to be his train of thought as well.

Re: For the live of God,Allah or whoever-McDermott GO!!! : Mon Sep 24, 2012 7:40 am  

I don't disagree with the above posts but I can't fault the coaching teams ability to get the side prepared for the important stages of the season. The way the top 8 system works if that involves performing well below par for stages of the season but peaking for the games that matter then so be it.
If we reverted to a top 5 playoff we would be forced to perform at a higher level on a weekly basis or risk scraping in every season.

Re: For the live of God,Allah or whoever-McDermott GO!!! : Mon Sep 24, 2012 7:56 am  

It would seem the whole competition has been diluted this year. Our weekly rounds season has been widely criticised (& rightly so), yet with 2 weeks remaining we were still in the running for 3rd. Are the standards dropping as a whole in SL, or are our expectations too high?

Unless the league reverts to first past the post format, I don't think the regular season will ever be a true reflection of a team. Or cut the number of games. Top Australian players rarely play more than 25 games in a season (SOO included), yet Sinfield et al had a whopping 50% more. In a season of 40+ games (over 10 months) it doesn't surprise me that there are some distinctly average performances

Re: For the live of God,Allah or whoever-McDermott GO!!! : Mon Sep 24, 2012 10:47 am  

AJC wrote:

It would seem the whole competition has been diluted this year. Our weekly rounds season has been widely criticised (& rightly so), yet with 2 weeks remaining we were still in the running for 3rd. Are the standards dropping as a whole in SL, or are our expectations too high?

Unless the league reverts to first past the post format, I don't think the regular season will ever be a true reflection of a team.

I disagree. Its only skewed by Leeds' win last season. Before that the grand final had been won by a team from the top 2 from every season bar one since its inception. The most consistent team over the season still tends to take the main prize

Re: For the live of God,Allah or whoever-McDermott GO!!! : Mon Sep 24, 2012 11:28 am  

The Eagle wrote:

Its only skewed by Leeds' win last season. Before that the grand final had been won by a team from the top 2 from every season bar one since its inception. The most consistent team over the season still tends to take the main prize

Shouldn't that read - one of the two most consistent teams?

SL Grand Finals:

1 V 2 - 11 (with 1 winning 7)

1 V 3 - 1 (with 1 winning)

2 V 3 - 1 (with 3 winning)

3 V 5 - 1 (with 5 winning)