I've just received a missive from that nice man at the Rhinos, Mr McDermott. Has anyone else received one? (I have to ask as it was addressed to me personally, so didn't know if he had just taken a shine to me randomly!)

There was me getting all worried about the Rhinos & where we were headed, & it seems that I'm getting myself all worked up for nothing. Apparently, there were a host of extenuating circumstances which befell the club last season (I'm so glad he listed them for me, as I hadn't heard any of them before today).

Brian has confirmed to me that we will not be recruiting any further players as he feels the squad is good enough as it is. He did mention having two 34-year-old half backs, but assures me they will be fine.

Brian's only regret from last season was that he "chased too many wins too early in the season". Well that's good that he recognised this as his only flaw. Perhaps that can be our new tag line for 2017 - "Leeds Rhinos - Winning Isn't Everything".

Bless, good to know there are no delusions or instances of "burying heads in sand" over at HQ

I got that too, funny stuff.

It's almost as funny as that time GH proclaimed the 2015 squad as being the best ever.
Oh how we laughed.

Now now. We only won the treble because every other team is so poor.

Whilst I would ideally like to see some fresh blood - I wouldn't bet against them coming good again next year. Particularly when you look at the overall strength of the league - a good pre-season, a renewed fire in the belly, Chicko in 9 for the full season, a bit of luck on the injury front and some not so great opposition might be all it takes for them to be back in the winners circle.

Write them off at your peril!

not much wrong with the squad but desperatley need a quality half back and a coach

So if they don't try to win next season, things will pan out better..? They must have had a terrible attitude to winning games in 2015..!

Look, at the risk of allowing my mask of cynicism to slip, the (probable?) first 17 that we could/should put on the field is actually (on paper/previous exploits) certainly good enough to gain a top 4 spot in this SL. Is what we have behind that as good as most sides' back-up players in SL? Time will undoubtedly tell as injuries are almost certain.

We shall see whether BMD has learnt his lesson (& not the one about chasing wins at the start of 2016 - bizarre) - the lesson of not allowing his squad to wallow in self-pity & actively encouraging/leading the victim mentality as he did in 2016. Are professional sportsmen best able to produce top performances if their coach & leader is actively telling them (at least through the media) that all is doom & gloom, the world's against them, everything's going wrong etc? He needs to man up & lead from the front. You know, I absolutely loathe Shaun Wane, but would we have got the same number (a lot) of dire, lacklustre, uninspired, sometimes downright cowardly performances as BMD did last season with Wane in charge? We will never know, but I know where my money would be.

We have virtually the same squad that started last season, with Segeyaro & Ormondroyd replacing Falloon, Hardaker (probably) & Achurch. It makes it all the more puzzling that, looking at that 1st 17, they look like contenders (if you completely blank out last season). Injuries are not a valid excuse for most of those horrible performances. Wigan won the title without their hooker (McIlorum), their inspirational leader (O'Loughlin), their returning hero (Tomkins) & the form winger of the competition (Manfredi) for most or large parts of the year.

Still, onwards & upwards, I shall be getting behind BMD & the team in the fervent hope that this really was just our annus horribilis & normal service will be resumed (& I don't mean we have to be winning trophies - just competing).

2016 the teams suddenly got a whole lot better



Of course they did - delusional

You can't suggest the league isn't a strong one - Loiner 81 will spit his dummy out so far it will look like one of Jean Michel Jarre's lasers

By chasing wins I think he is admitting to his mistake (though not fully) of playing injured players, which by my count began in round 1 by playing an unfit Sutcliffe

Unless this is a smokescreen (GH has often lied about signings publicly to help his negotiations before), then it looks like they are putting a lot of faith in Lilly (or possibly Golding) which I am broadly okay with, though I hope some of the boo boys won't get on the younger players cases if they have a bad game

Signings or not, we have a squad capable of top 4 and if Mac can't get it done this year then its time to find a coach who can

Because i've got a long history of spitting my dummy on here....

Why do you keep making things up?
I'm still waiting for ANY evidence of ANYONE from Leeds Rugby saying last year's squad was the best ever.

Some did and some went backwards but the team you tipped to finish top & to win the GF had a terrible, terrible year.

I don't know if people are purposely missing the point McD is making about 'chasing wins too early' or if they're just a bit thick!

He's clearly saying that what they should have done in the early part of the season is instead of spending time on reviewing that weeks opponents and preparing game plans for that individual opponent, they should instead have used the time to catch up on what they missed in pre-season. I'd also guess he's also reflecting that he shouldn't have rushed people back from injury in the early season to chase wins.

It's a bit of a lame excuse granted, but it's not like he's said 'we shouldn't have tried to win games'.

Translated as GH handed out contracts to certain players too long in the tooth and now we're stuck with them!.
Was wondering had Wigan.saints.wire.hull had the season we've just had would they of stood still and recruited nothing?

So, now we're using Hull and Wire as the yardstick for sustained success? How?

If McD has sold that crock of $h1t to GH then he deserves more credit than he gets. He's in the wrong job. If he actually believes it then he is also in the wrong job.

However, if we get some luck with injuries I can see a top 6 finish not being particularly challenging.

Not using them as a yardstick just saying they wouldn't stand still and pretend everything was fine after that rubbish of last season.

Wow. Everyone is mocking McD's open letter yet everyone is also buying it!?

For months everyone has slated the current squad as not good enough yet now allow a sudden we are good to go with that same squad?

It's like you all have Alzheimer's.

"Only regret".....he didn't say that at all, he said his major regret.



He also admits that they were all guilty of relying on excuses too much.....the exact thing people have pointed at him and he is accepting that is true.

This was my view on it back in April re chasing wins...

"Aside from clear lack of leadership and direction on the field, 80% of what goes on in a game is mental. BM talked recently in an interview how training wasnt an enjoyable environment to be in at the moment as 'they have to always address the things that are going wrong' this is clearly an approach that isn't working at the moment. I have always believed that the more you enjoy your work the better you perform, sometimes the harder you strive for something the further it gets away and more demoralising it becomes. It's OK talking about technical issues but this game isn't the most complicated, morale is the first thing to address in my view.

If you have seen the PA suite at Leeds the players are analysed right down to the infinite detail and when players are low this is not always helpful, employees are not robots and don't function as such"

The main issue remains. No reasons/excuses could hide the fact that the glue that held Leeds together as a unit and made all the pieces connect retired and now works for the RFL.
We need a player to put a decent squad into shapes that make a team perform.

We needed a Gidley, not a flat balloon.

Thing is when we were playing well in 2015 it wasn't because Sinfield was directing us around. The style that worked for us didn't have great structure or set plays or a kicking game that always delivered. It was one built just playing what we saw and keeping the ball alive and leaving the opposition knackered with constant offloads and we produced that on occasions when Sinfield was out of the side with away wins at Catalans and Castleford and we were out of sight away to Saints before Sinfield came off the bench. It wasn't like we were clinical in the final 20m then either and we still looked more likely to score from further out.

What that style needs most is energy, enthusiasm, fitness, confidence. All the things that were beaten out of the side as the start of the season progressed.

Look at the McGuire no try @ Wigan in 2015, keeping the ball alive repeatadly against the toughest defence in SL who were left grasping at thin air. That kind of play summed up what we were about in 2015 and that didn't require that Sinfield type general, it required a team that had the energy and confidence to do that. And we clearly weren't properly fit because of the time lost in pre-season to have the energy (and then subsequent loss of confidence/form) to try pull that style off.

Think it's forgotten because of what Sinfield did with the 40/20 in the playoff semi and his good performances in the cup games, but he started that season really badly in 2015 and dare I say he was a bit of a weak link in a side that really started hot before he missed games through injury and then not selected.

He has answered a lot of questions people was asking but they're still one more thing I don't understand only playing 16 men in games and sometimes 1 sub would only get 10-15 minutes at end of a game