LEICESTER TIGERS 2023/24 - KANGAROO MCKELLER: Do you come from a land down under? (Squad thread pt 2)

[kpj tiger]

Van Wyk confimed to Bath

[mol2]

For me McKellar gets another year.
He's a new coach in a world cup year without the benefit of moulding his own squad.
Some bits have been OK but the absence of a dedicated attack coach is concerning. Not his fault but it is clear this is a glaring area of weakness that none of the current coaches seem to be able to address so the board need to address this as a priority.

As for mentions of Bath having a great season whilst having the same record as us just reflects how woeful Bath have been for a long time - The only way is up as the song goes. For us that's disappointing. It reflects different levels of aspiration and expectation. We are Tigers and expect to be there or thereabouts in the league but accepting we have no divine right to be the best. Europe is another matter compared to the assets and finances the big French clubs and the IRU backing that Leinster have.

[sam16111986]

As for the likes of Bath, Quins and of course Sarries, they seem much more capable on turning it on and going all the way.

We've beat all of Quins, Bath (twice) and Saints this season.

I not sure we are firing enough shots to win the thing but we've found a way of grinding out results this season, including against the bigger sides.

[Rugbygramps]

Imo Bath are a good comparison. One of the historic power houses of English rugby results have not been great, at least partially down to internal promotion and the wrong coaching set up.
They have now found the right man and have stuck with him, this is his 3rd season, and that is showing dividends

[GB72]

I think that, in my opinion, the issue is that we have an OK record compared to other teams but we have never really been convincing in our wins and a couple of our losses have been because we have not even turned up.

Not looking to get rid of the coach or anything, it has been an unusual year with the World Cup and an absent coach. I can only assume that we would have started with a pre season plan to develop that may have gone out of the window when we went one coach down. We were also looking to integrate new systems with a new head coach but had a large number of players who could not start developing under the new regime pre season. They would have had completely different systems in their head that had been drilled into them for months that they then had to change.

So, this year gets a pass. That said, I look at that possible team sheet for Saints this week and wonder how many teams can compete with that but we are just not clicking yet.

[jgriffin]

All discussions tigers will always eventually end up about Loffreda

It is a fair comparison, no? I appreciate it was 16 years ago at this point, but a coach coming in, affected by World Cup year.

Purely based on league results -

1999/00 - Dean Richards - Finished 1st - Champions
2003/04 - Dean Richards (Sacked)/John Wells - Finished 5th
2007/08 - Marcelo Loffreda - Finished 4th - Runners up
2011/12 - Richard Cockerill - Finished 2nd - Runners up
2015/16 - Richard Cockerill - Finished 4th - Losing Semi-finalist.
2019/20 - Geordan Murphy - Finished 11th
2023-24 - Dan McKeller - Potential finish 1st - 9th*

Deano, Loffreda and Murphy left their positions either during or after World Cup affected seasons.

Another key point I suppose in McKellars favour is he's 1 year into a 3 year contract. Is he doing that badly to warrant us paying him out of it? I'm not sure he is.

Well for starters with Loffreda the fact English was his second language didn't help.
Cockerill was already in charge of the club for pre-season and the first 2 months of the season. You had the likes of Neil Back back stabbing him. Backy was already gunning for the Tigers head coach role before Lofferda was out the building fortunately the club gave it to Cockers and Backy sulked and went to Leeds.

Lofferda wasn't given a chance and the Tigers old boys made sure of it
and the league was massively different in terms of talent distribution.

was going to post similar - concur 100%.

[sk 88]

SB basically had his first season as a free shot, so I think the same should be afforded to DMK. Agree with other comments, we were massively affected being a WC year and have probably done okay overall.

That being said, the two results against Gloucester did make me massively question the direction things were going. The attack coach situation has been farcical and hasn’t helped. Whilst happy to give DMK the benefit of the doubt, he and the club have to accept that most won’t be as forgiving next season and really don’t want the same excuses again.

Can we please put this nonsense to bed? In his first season Borthwick took us from 11th in the table to 6th and showed clear signs of improvement. People seem to be merging a few games at the fag end of the 2019/20 season when Geordan Murphy was still here and the main man into being a whole season. At most, if we are to say that was one whole season purely on Borthwick, Borthwick selected 4 games early season to really mix up selection, then moved decisively forward from November.

I'm sorry SK 88 I respect your opinion but since when is 10 games a few games at the end of the season?
And Borthwick had full control of the team during that time.

Those 10 games allow him to decide which players he wanted to keep and completely gutted the squad because of it.
Anyone who doesn't think those 10 games where massively important to Borthwick is kidding themselves

Also a little telling stat in his first season our record v the top 4 teams was 7 losses and 1 win. Don't get me wrong we improved a lot but we also looked miles off the top on the whole.
I feel that Bristol Bears home game was the cataylst for us (and looking at Bristol since for them as well but in the opposite way)

The league as a whole is so much different now compared to then we had 12 and the squads of everyone looked a lot more stretched thin, a lot of clubs benefited from those 3 clubs collapsing.

No one has claimed that wasn't important, but the selections were only mixed around for the mid week games, which was 4 games. And it wasn't a whole season as a "free hit" which was claimed, it was 10 games in 5 weeks where really only 1 really mattered (ECC knock out game, accept can be some debate around the word "really mattered"). The rest were literal dead rubbers.

Also, no one said we were the finished article. The point was that we were visibly improving.

If people want to say they think McKellar is doing great, fine, okay, indifferent, dreadful, then whatever they're entitled to do so. But you can't claim Borthwick wrote off a whole season as a "free hit" where we weren't getting better or to use his metaphor turning the tanker around

[RunTigerRun]

Watching the BUCS final:

Meredith with a lovely chip for a break and miss pass to assist.
Gourlay with a nice dart down the left early on too.
Seb Smith with a good carry after a miss throw Exeter line out to give Loughborough a gainline carry and a peach of a line by Chris Preen to score. At centre and an ex-flanker Preen might be worth a look at Loughborough again next season.

Link on YouTube for any interested

[MCC1964]

Imo Bath are a good comparison. One of the historic power houses of English rugby results have not been great, at least partially down to internal promotion and the wrong coaching set up.
They have now found the right man and have stuck with him, this is his 3rd season, and that is showing dividends

This. I really don’t get where people are coming from. Alex Ferguson was really close to getting the sack after two or three seasons.

[sam16111986]

Watching the BUCS final:

Meredith with a lovely chip for a break and miss pass to assist.
Gourlay with a nice dart down the left early on too.
Seb Smith with a good carry after a miss throw Exeter line out to give Loughborough a gainline carry and a peach of a line by Chris Preen to score. At centre and an ex-flanker Preen might be worth a look at Loughborough again next season.

Link on YouTube for any interested

A quick Google on Christmas Preen

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.therug ... preen/amp/

[RunTigerRun]

Watching the BUCS final:

Meredith with a lovely chip for a break and miss pass to assist.
Gourlay with a nice dart down the left early on too.
Seb Smith with a good carry after a miss throw Exeter line out to give Loughborough a gainline carry and a peach of a line by Chris Preen to score. At centre and an ex-flanker Preen might be worth a look at Loughborough again next season.

Link on YouTube for any interested

A quick Google on Christmas Preen

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.therug ... preen/amp/

Ah nice - good read! Thanks Sam! (Loving the auto correct by the way!

[sam16111986]

Watching the BUCS final:

Meredith with a lovely chip for a break and miss pass to assist.
Gourlay with a nice dart down the left early on too.
Seb Smith with a good carry after a miss throw Exeter line out to give Loughborough a gainline carry and a peach of a line by Chris Preen to score. At centre and an ex-flanker Preen might be worth a look at Loughborough again next season.

Link on YouTube for any interested

A quick Google on Christmas Preen

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.therug ... preen/amp/

Ah nice - good read! Thanks Sam! (Loving the auto correct by the way!

I didn't even notice until you said.

[kpj tiger]

Apparently it was mentioned on comms during the BUCS final that Meredith has been released by Tigers, would be very surprised if true as we aren't exactly swimming in 10 options

[TigerFeetSteve]

Apparently it was mentioned on comms during the BUCS final that Meredith has been released by Tigers, would be very surprised if true as we aren't exactly swimming in 10 options

It would be nice to get a leavers list of the Senior Academy too.

[ads]

If people want to say they think McKellar is doing great, fine, okay, indifferent, dreadful, then whatever they're entitled to do so.

How ever people percieve McKellar is doing, good or bad, theres another 6 premiership managers all doing exactly the same so far this season. 7 teams with the same win/loss ratio with positions in the league only arranged by bonus points.

Personally I think this season has been a mess. Not enough teams in the league, too many breaks, players out due to a WC and then 6 nations and injuries. I don't think we're doing too bad. I mean we've had a cup final and got knocked out of europe by one of the best euro teams in history and one of the potential winners.

Would be lovely to have a full squad for the next few weeks, so we can really see where we are.

I'm in a positive mood this morning, the sun is shining and its not raining!