Calls for consistency as Rhinos put their attacking foot forward

Even the tag of defending champions does not sit right with McDermott, who wants his players focused on attack rather than defence in the coming season.

“We’re not champions anymore,” insisted McDermott yesterday.

“What we are is the same level as every other team.

“At midnight on New Year’s Eve 2011 we stopped being Super League champions.

“We’re at the same start line as everybody else and we’re going to go for it like everybody else.

“We’re not defending anything, we’re going to attack.

“We’re going for it because we recognise there’s another 13 teams at the same start line.”

Refreshingly for McDermott and Rhinos fans, his players have bought into his mentality.

“We’re in a unique position,” he continued.

“I don’t know if there’s too many teams over the course of Super League who become champions that feel there’s lots and lots of unfinished business, which we feel that we have.

“That’s because quite a number of our performances last year were below par.

“And it doesn’t sit well with us. It doesn’t sit well that we weren’t the best team from round one right through to round 27. We finished off the best team and we have no qualms how the season finished, none whatsoever.

“But if you’re asking if we’re happy with how things panned out last year, then no.

“We want to be the best team from round one, keep being the best team and hopefully finish as the best team.

“There was enough said about the journey we all went on last year. Now everybody has the desire, without any prompting from me, to be the best they can be this year.”

Consistency is the ultimate goal for McDermott, whose long-term plan was boosted by Ryan Hall’s decision to sign a new contract keeping him at the club for the next five years.

Leeds’s travails in his first season in charge were well documented, with the summer months a particular low point as one of the biggest clubs in the sport flirted with the prospect of failing to reach the play-offs.

They finished the regular season fifth, then proceeded to rewrite history by winning four games against the odds to capture a fourth title in five years.

They drew inspiration from American football’s Green Bay Packers, who took a similar route to victory in last year’s Super Bowl.

The Packers took that momentum into the current campaign and dominated the NFL until their season collapsed with a surprise defeat in the play-offs last weekend.

While McDermott is wary of a similar fate and quick to point out that any momentum gained from their own play-off run is now consigned to history, he is keen for his side to be the best in the league, week in, week out.

“Anyone who watched our season unfold will know there’s a fair amount of improvement needed,” he said.

“We’re in a unique position where we are champions but there are areas we need to improve.

“I hope we show consistency. Towards the back end of last year we pretty much nailed everything we were trying to do. Added to that was some individual brilliance from certain people.

“I can’t control the individual brilliance so much, but what I can try and control is that consistency that we lacked.”

McDermott is bullish that the only momentum they will carry into this season from last autumn’s remarkable run is the confidence they garnered from the way they played their rugby.

He said: “Because of how we finished last year we now understand what we’re trying to do offensively and defensively and we’ll start the season with that.

“Hopefully there won’t be too much of a period of testing that out and adjusting to that.

“But in terms of that feelgood, unbeatable factor that we had last year, that won’t be with us.

“We have to earn that again.”

Leeds begin the new campaign at home to Hull KR on Friday, February 3, before a trip to the side they deposed as champions, Wigan, the following weekend.

Manly Sea Eagles await in the Heinz Big Soup World Club Challenge in front of their own fans at Headingley Carnegie on Friday, February 17.

Leeds’s only significant hit-out before such a testing opening fortnight is this Friday’s friendly with Championship side Featherstone Rovers.

McDermott took his side to Cyprus for their pre-season camp, housing them in accommodation that he yesterday revealed was ‘not fit for his dog’.

The head coach believes in keeping his players grounded, no matter what their past accomplishments.

He may be blessed with Leeds’s honour-laden squad but ominously for the rest of Super League he also has a healthy one.

McDermott has no significant injury worries just 16 days from the big kick-off, which is in contrast to how he began his first season in charge, when influential figures like Jamie Peacock and Danny McGuire were still overcoming injuries.

“While we were a lesser team without those two blokes in it, I thought our team performed below par, regardless of them being in it or not,” he added.

“A lot was made about our start to the season, or the first half of the season, where we were off the pace.

“A lot was made of JP and McGuire being out. And I agree that some of that will have been to do with them, but I just thought we were below par.

“Even though this year we are in a far better state regarding injuries, that doesn’t mean we’re going to play well. We have to be accountable, regardless of who is in the team. If players don’t make the first game it’s not the worst thing because we’ve got another 26 rounds to go.

“We’ll chop and change the team and hopefully we’ll be in the fortunate position where we can rest one or two during the year, if the injury status means that we can do that.

“But right now, no long-term injuries does not guarantee that we’re going to win Super League. We need to perform this year and to consistently perform.”