McDermott rules out quitting struggling Leeds

Leeds Rhinos head coach Brian McDermott insists he will not contemplate quitting even if the champions' poor form continues.
Brian McDermott.Brian McDermott.
Brian McDermott.

Last season’s treble-winners host Catalans Dragons tonight marooned at the foot of Super League with just three wins from 18 games this year.

Furthermore, veteran hooker Rob Burrow (calf) and prop Adam Cuthbertson (hamstring) pulled out of their squad yesterday after failing fitness tests.

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It was the last thing McDermott needed to hear given he was already without seven regulars.

On the back of a six-game losing run, pressure is mounting.

Troubled Leeds now seem destined for the Qualifiers and, asked if results don’t improve, would he ever think about handing over the reins, McDermott replied: “Do I question myself? Of course. You question yourself in any of these situations.

“Do I question my role or influence on the group? No.

“I understand why you ask that question, I suppose you have got to ask that question.

“But, if you want to speak about personal things, there are certain things that have been out of my control.

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“Two major factors (injuries and loss of training facilities) have been out of my control.

“You don’t ask for a perfect landscape but it needs to be a little better than what it is before you start pointing the finger and saying ‘you got the recruitement wrong, the coach isn’t doing this….’

“That’s an easy one to do at this point of time.”

Leeds will simply hope to show more stomach than they did in the second half of last week’s dire 52-18 loss at Warrington.

Injuries hamper them again but McDermott said: “I’m almost robotic to it.

“It’s about the team that plays against Catalans now.

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“Where we are at at the moment and how we’ve played these last three weeks we have got to put out 13 men to start the game and, ultimately, 17 men to come up with at least a defensive performance that gives us a bit of integrity back.

“We lacked that in the second half last Friday – honesty and integrity. That’s a flavour of what we’ve been getting at this week ready for Catalans.”