Re: Brian McDermott needs Toronto; Toronto needs Brian McDer : Fri Oct 19, 2018 1:08 pm  

TheUnassumingBadger wrote: It looks right up McDermott's street, at Leeds he had a special group of players with a mentality and ruthlessness that meant they were almost unbeatable in big matches. Required no coaching. At Toronto he will have a squad of players which are better than everyone else in the league. Requires no coaching. It's surprising then,after the ' most popular and influential characters at Leeds Rhinos ' had enjoyed 3 trophy laden years that the guy he felt would do a great job,McDermott,carried on with the special group of players with a mentality and ruthlessness,through and beyond the 30+ age bracket to win even more silverware. Source I think that takes coaching. Toronto,like Leigh before them,required coaching in the 'qualifiers' - but fell short.

TheUnassumingBadger wrote: It looks right up McDermott's street, at Leeds he had a special group of players with a mentality and ruthlessness that meant they were almost unbeatable in big matches. Required no coaching. At Toronto he will have a squad of players which are better than everyone else in the league. Requires no coaching. It's surprising then,after the ' most popular and influential characters at Leeds Rhinos ' had enjoyed 3 trophy laden years that the guy he felt would do a great job,McDermott,carried on with the special group of players with a mentality and ruthlessness,through and beyond the 30+ age bracket to win even more silverware. Source I think that takes coaching. Toronto,like Leigh before them,required coaching in the 'qualifiers' - but fell short.

Re: Brian McDermott needs Toronto; Toronto needs Brian McDer : Fri Oct 19, 2018 2:01 pm  

ThePrinter wrote:

People wrote him off early days and some could never admit they were wrong that’s why they had to come up with myths and rumours to explain our success.

Like I mentioned on another thread he wasn’t given much with the chequebook to replace key players and didn’t get a marquee signing in his 7 and a half years there. The stadium work is done and suddenly Dave Furner already has one marquee signing with another rumoured to be on his way and Furner hasn’t even arrived in the country. Best excuse some can come up with is that McDermott didn’t want to sign new and better players.

The stick McDermott got year on year after delivering trophy after trophy was pretty ridiculous, I stuck up for him, even during this year but in hindsight I think he should have probably have left after last years GF win, he has been scapegoated somewhat for the lack of adequate replacements for the departing players but I'm not sure how involved he was in that, I do think the current changes are the correct ones, the timing not so good.

He is a first rate coach at getting his teams to do the impossible and get up for the big games but he isn't the guy if you want a well structured and 'coached' side, I do think he would be great for Toronto but not so much Widnes has I don't think he's the kind of coach to get a team full of fairly average players playing above their ability (like say Powell)