Warrington Wolves • Re: Do not blame the Manager!
One thing to remember with Powell was he also had to do a lot of "squad surgery" when he took over at Leeds from Dean Lance as they were carrying a lot of senior players who were underperforming and the club was in a frustrating state of underachievement.
Powell moved on guys like Andy Hay, Darren Fleary, Anthony Farrell, Ryan Sheridan, Jamie Mathiou plus the big gun NRL signings Brett Mullins, Tonie Carroll, Brad Clyde and Robbie Mears. Iestyn Harris also departed for RU soon after he took over.
In their place he signed Andrew Dunemann, Chris McKenna, Matt Adamson, David Furner, Gary Connolly, Adrian Vowles, Willie Poching - who were all good reliable senior professionals to create a positive environment in which he could bring through the guys from the youth team - Rob Burrow, Mark Calderwood, Danny McGuire, Richie Mathers, Ryan Bailey, Danny Ward, Matt Diskin, JJB.
Leeds didn't implode like we are doing now probably because he had access to a much stronger pool of senior players to recruit from and also their youth talent that he was bringing through was far superior to ours, but there was a bit of turbulence in Leeds at the time and I expect Powell ruffled feathers by moving on so many of the old guard particularly as some of those guys would have been his former teammates dring his playing days.
That squad surgery job he did at Leeds was successful and he left a team for TS which was ready to challenge for the title (and won the GF in TS first season).
Powell moved on guys like Andy Hay, Darren Fleary, Anthony Farrell, Ryan Sheridan, Jamie Mathiou plus the big gun NRL signings Brett Mullins, Tonie Carroll, Brad Clyde and Robbie Mears. Iestyn Harris also departed for RU soon after he took over.
In their place he signed Andrew Dunemann, Chris McKenna, Matt Adamson, David Furner, Gary Connolly, Adrian Vowles, Willie Poching - who were all good reliable senior professionals to create a positive environment in which he could bring through the guys from the youth team - Rob Burrow, Mark Calderwood, Danny McGuire, Richie Mathers, Ryan Bailey, Danny Ward, Matt Diskin, JJB.
Leeds didn't implode like we are doing now probably because he had access to a much stronger pool of senior players to recruit from and also their youth talent that he was bringing through was far superior to ours, but there was a bit of turbulence in Leeds at the time and I expect Powell ruffled feathers by moving on so many of the old guard particularly as some of those guys would have been his former teammates dring his playing days.
That squad surgery job he did at Leeds was successful and he left a team for TS which was ready to challenge for the title (and won the GF in TS first season).
Statistics: Posted by sally cinnamon — Sun Jun 05, 2022 4:33 pm