Don't misunderstand me .... I am in total agreement with you. If young capable home grown talent is blocked by antipodean imports that offer no more... then it is indeed a travesty. We are lucky BJB is still with the club despite now being 22 ... And like you I think the loss of Broughton was a severe case of mis - management.

I have questioned the wisdom of persisting with the two-hooker farce; the signing of Delaney as a centre when BJB would have been at least as capable in that role; and the signing of Cross at Ambler's expense

It is ironic that the one exceptional recent antipodean talent that could have been justified was diminished by more mis-management in appeasing his nemesis. However, as I have also previously stated, even that signing should not stand in the way of an exceptional or equal home grown talent: if Liam Hood meets that criteria ( Diskin didn't ) he should be the club's priority. No more mistakes ...

My only issue was use of the word 'average' for Donald...guess it depends on your definition... BUT again I emphasise Broughton would have been the better signing of the two.

Fox was given chances in pre-season friendlies and deemed surplus by TS a coach who had won a championship and WCC so i've no problem with that tbh but good on Fox for working hard in the lower leagues and eventually earning a chance at Wakey and then HKR.
Now Calderwood wanted more than the club offered simple so who says they then went and spent MORE on Donald?
Donald already had a decent NRL strike-rate btw and as we all saw maybe Calderwood was'nt "all that" and he (like others have since) benefited from playing in a quality team.

Well lets look at what he achieved in the NRL.

For Manly he scored 48 tries in 68 games
For Paramatta he scored 15 tries in 21 games

I would say this is an above average performance in the NRL




Why do you not accept that this is an above average performance_

OK if you need more.
In 2006 he was the 3rd top try scoring winger in Superleague.
In both 2007 and 2008 he was named in the Superleague Dream Team

Again hardly a record of "a decidedly average antipodean" I am so glad your views are not considered by the Leeds management.



This same player was too greedy in his contract renewal negotiations. I note you have not recorded his tries per 100 games since he left Leeds.

Compare Donalds record against Calderwoods over the same period then try telling us that Leeds made the wrong decision.





oooh you are an angry chappie. I think you are losing it tvoc.

...and how well would Broughton go in a " quality team "...? Considering how good he has looked playing for lowly Salford.

I would suggest he is a better specialist wing talent than either Calderwood, Fox or, especially, Smith. ( much though I like him )

Broughton spent time on loan at Hull mate and the powers that be decided against giving him the deal he wanted or did'nt offer one at all and judging by how our squad looked at the start of last year again i'm fine with that.
lets get one thing straight we have'nt let the next "Jason Robinson" get away and good luck to the kid and although he got selected for the train on squad i take that with a pinch of salt given tyhat it was Mcbanana who picked him.
Btw Gibson has looked more than adequate in the Salford team a player i backed on here for yrs just for many to deem him not good enough but like as has been suggested many times you can't keep them all and but for a horrendous injury list and poor CC final last year the Bjb loan or Broughton release would'nt of been mentioned half as much.
Smith isn't just a winger he's a quality outside back that can perform at a very good level in a number of positions and i certainly would'nt swop him for Broughton or any of the other players mentioned.

Then you are far too easily pleased when recruiting what should be a limited resource. At almost 26 above average would be City V Country selection, State Of Origin Squad Selection, Australian Squad selection, Rothmans medal selection etc and certainly not reserve grade selection.




Wow amazing. The player he replaced was the top try scorer (as well as top winger) in SL.



And the other wingers were: in 2007 Kevin Penny and 2008 Ade Gardner. I guess these players must also be considered above average now then.



Quite true because if they did we'd have lost the services of Worrall, Gibson and Bush. Oh hang on a minute.



Feel free to do so. It'll be higher than Donald will achieve.



The comparison I'm interested in, is did the potency and involvement from the right wing position improve with the change in personel from 2005 to 2006. IMO (take it or leave it) it regressed and markedly so.



You said it.

And if say Calderwood wanted £5K more then Leeds were offering they would still be right in digging their heels in and showing him the door, yes?

Brad Godden left the club alledgedly for such a piffling difference in valuation.

I can imagine what you were thinking about Godden at the time, **** him, am I right, I'm not wrong am I.



Followed immediately by desperately getting the shot to pieces Leeds defence into some sort of order. Screaming at Smith where he wanted him.

Nice to see someone who takes a pride in their performance and clearly cares about the club getting his chance .... finally.

Mark Calderwood justified a pay rise after become a great all round player by his final season for Leeds. However there’s the salary cap to consider and the fact that one person doesn’t make up a whole team. If money wasn’t an issue, we’d probably have all the better Leeds born players playing for the Rhinos today. However we have to make do with what the rules are.

In no way should the above be used to demonise Scott Donald or Gary Hetherington for that matter. If anything the RFL should be cursed.

Let's not forget that Donald was signed to replace Marcus Bai, not Calderwood.

According to the Leeds CEO he was signed as a direct replacement for Mark Calderwood. You don't even have to take my word for it, here is what he said in the YEP on the 20th June 2005 under the banner headline =#0000BFRhinos Land Aussie Ace. Quote ="Leeds CEO, Gary Hetherington" “Scott is a straight replacement for Mark. With Mark, it needed to be brought to a head, for both the club and player. That is the conclusion we came to last week. We accepted that Mark is leaving and he accepted that we would be going out to find a replacement.”'" If you no longer have the paper copy you could all nip down to the library to check it out ...... if you're quick. As if there could be any doubt that Calderwood was being replaced by Donald you'd also have to take issue with Coach Smith: 2005 Leeds right wing selection: Calderwood 35 from 36 games, Smith 1 from 36 2006 Leeds right wing selection: Donald 33 from 33 games Chev Walker at right centre remained a constant throughout the majority of this transition from an undervalued Leeds lad to expensive Aussie ace, Calderwood collecting 35 tries from the above appearances to Donald's 23. www.engagesuperleague.co.uk/stat ... eason=2011 Quote ="Damo-Leeds"However there’s the salary cap to consider and the fact that one person doesn’t make up a whole team. '" The only question I have is: Would Leeds lad Calderwood have stayed around for the money given to Aussie ace Scott Donald? I don't know the answer but it would have been interesting to find out.

According to the Leeds CEO he was signed as a direct replacement for Mark Calderwood. You don't even have to take my word for it, here is what he said in the YEP on the 20th June 2005 under the banner headline =#0000BFRhinos Land Aussie Ace. Quote ="Leeds CEO, Gary Hetherington" “Scott is a straight replacement for Mark. With Mark, it needed to be brought to a head, for both the club and player. That is the conclusion we came to last week. We accepted that Mark is leaving and he accepted that we would be going out to find a replacement.”'" If you no longer have the paper copy you could all nip down to the library to check it out ...... if you're quick. As if there could be any doubt that Calderwood was being replaced by Donald you'd also have to take issue with Coach Smith: 2005 Leeds right wing selection: Calderwood 35 from 36 games, Smith 1 from 36 2006 Leeds right wing selection: Donald 33 from 33 games Chev Walker at right centre remained a constant throughout the majority of this transition from an undervalued Leeds lad to expensive Aussie ace, Calderwood collecting 35 tries from the above appearances to Donald's 23. www.engagesuperleague.co.uk/stat ... eason=2011 Quote ="Damo-Leeds"However there’s the salary cap to consider and the fact that one person doesn’t make up a whole team. '" The only question I have is: Would Leeds lad Calderwood have stayed around for the money given to Aussie ace Scott Donald? I don't know the answer but it would have been interesting to find out.

To be fair Mark Calderwood is as much as a Leeds lad as Scott Donald as both of them weren’t born in this city. But lets not get postcode petty here



Well we’ll never know how much these two got paid and I’d be more than happy to leave it at that.

Just to be a pedant but Calderwood is one of them there Londoners and not really a Leeds lad.

Did he eventually win a contract with Quins for this year then?

Still there on a trial basis.
Tvoc.
Brad Godden wanted to stay but Leeds signed Senior now i may be wrong but i seem to remember Godden saying as such but he was'nt offered a deal.
Now as with Innes and Godden i was sad to see both leave especially Godden who was one of the best centres i personally have seen in the Blue and Amber but we ended up with Big Keith and as much as it hurt to see Brad depart i would'nt swop the service we've had out of Senior for an extra 2yrs out of him.

Donald may well have been 'average' in the NRL (although his strike rate compares favourably with many 'better' NRL wingers), but no 'average' winger would have scored his 2007 GF try. I doubt Calderwood would have either. Those kind of moments are what watching sport's all about.

Calderwood scored his share of breathtakingly good tries also (the hand-grenade try at the JJB springs to mind here where there was an audible gasp from the Wigan faithful as he stuffed their full-back) and on the biggest stage in our domestic game he almost single handedly shut out Bradford's biggest threat in the '04 GF. He ran the legs off Vainikolo with his kick chase, aided by the pinpiont accuracy from Sinfield's boot obviously.

Whether Calderwood would or wouldn't have beaten Wellens with an acre of space and Webb as a decoy I think is arguable (I'd suggest he would have) but I definitely saw no evidence in Donald's Leeds career that he could have bottled Leslie up quite so effectively.

__________



I know you are technically correct but as he was also a product of the Leeds Amateur Leugues (Stanningley ARLFC) prior to joining the Leeds Academy I'm claiming adoptive rights on behalf of the city.

For whatever reason I think you're downplaying Donald's ability.

For at least half his time here,I think the only person who didn't match up to Donald's abilities was Scott himself. A couple of truly outstanding tries simply illustrates that particular point.

I thought he was also a reserve player for the latter part of his NRL career?......and he certainly performed like one for his first 18 months here.

He has a man crush on Jodie Broughton.

You see in his latter years I wasn't a fan of Scott Donald and thought he was here at least one season too many.

But your comment about his first 18 months is just wrong. There was nothing different to how Scott Donald played then and how Scott Donald played in his super league dream team years. The only difference was the specific stat of tries scored, and that in the main was effected by his centre partner. Too many people are influenced by that stat rather than the individual performance. Scott put in 3 seasons of good performances for us.

My own opinion always was and always will be that Calderwood would have matched and exceeded anything that Scott Donald did for us, but was not afforded that opportunity, and in that respect I agree with all that tvoc has put, except about Broughton. But then the club had to go for the next best thing, and I presume that was Scott Donald.

I agree with most of your post Gotcha but Calderwood was afforded the opportunity, at the price we deemed him to be worth. His valuation of his worth was higher, as was Wigans. During his Wigan years we won three championships and he and they won none. We were succesful without him. We likely would have been succesful with him but, so what?

My opinion has never been greatly influenced by stats, which can always be interpreted in a variety of ways anyway. I have always preferred to base my views on what I see before me on the rugby field. To be honest, I can't remember Donald even playing for us in 2005, and I sat there in the North Stand for the better part of the 2006 season, wondering just when our Aussie chum was going to join in with the rest of the squad.

In 2007 and 2008 we got our money's worth, but I recall him being caught out of position many times in his Leeds career, and I still don't buy into the idea that it was down to whoever was playing inside him at that time. 2010 can be written off due to injury and early retirement, so I suppose it would be fairer to judge him over a 4 season period, where he would fare a bit better.

My overall impression of Scott Donald, irrespective of whether, with the benefit of hindsight we should have kept another, younger leeds prospect, is that we could have seen a cracking player on the wing for all of his time here, and sadly, we were shortchanged.

I accept your point, history proves that.

Calderwood made his own mistake. I honestly believe that he would have been the best winger this club ever had, had he stayed. But he didn't and both lost out on that because of it. Although as you said the club didn't lose anything as far as trophy's are concerned.

One of my favourit trys ever!

The main stylistic difference between Donald and Calderwood: professionalism.

Agreed.