Tigers v Sale (A) - Premiership - Friday 10th May 2024 - KO: 7:45pm

[Tigersunited]

I agree, but, if he has got the dressing room we could see a good performance and maybe a famous win. The selections and his comments this week is beginning to make me wonder if he has ‘lost the dressing room’

[CrumblingTerrace]

It's a conservative selection. There's a lot of pressure on DMK right now and that's not conducive to giving an unproven young player a chance.

[Tigersunited]

To be honest, it does feel a bit of a missed opportunity. Woodward is going to be in the Senior Squad next season anyway, so would make sense to have him on the bench over Phil C. FTT over Dolly makes more sense, especially as they are similar players and Whitcombe should be starting over Van Wyk. You could make all 3 of those changes and not weaken the team.

I like McKellar, but he is frustrating at times.

I’ve just listen to the radio leicester interview with mcKeller, and there’s no doubt he wants to win but he seems to be weighed down by the fan expectations, club history and club dna. Where he seem to have slipped into that geordan Murphy mindset of this is my team and I’m sticking with it. Like you say those changes have no real negative impact on that team, but possibly posonew for next season.
It’s hard to not compare it to birthweight in his 1st season who play 5/6 20 year olds through the season, who are now not only 1st choice for us but also their countries.

I found the interview pretty frustrating, I don’t hear other coaches banging on about “23 games” I’ve heard this from him before and he appears focused on it, if this message is being heard by the player, which it surely is, they will feel fatigued. Part of the role of HC is to draw the players attention away from those kind of difficulties and to focus on opportunity and positive's…..

[fortysix]

Two massive points

One, he seems to have lost the dressing room, and the result tonight will go a long way to decide that factor

Secondly, its blooming obvious the majority the players are not nearly fit enough. Youngs is a prime example. Shocking for Professional Athletes, but its the Head Coach who must take 80% of the blame.

[Bunchy]

I know a few players personally - it is total rubbish to say he has lost the dressing room - they couldn't be more behind him.

FACT

[sam16111986]

I know a few players personally - it is total rubbish to say he has lost the dressing room - they couldn't be more behind him.

FACT

Does feel like some people want some drama to make up for the fact we won't make the playoffs.

[Stephen18]

To be honest, it does feel a bit of a missed opportunity. Woodward is going to be in the Senior Squad next season anyway, so would make sense to have him on the bench over Phil C. FTT over Dolly makes more sense, especially as they are similar players and Whitcombe should be starting over Van Wyk. You could make all 3 of those changes and not weaken the team.

I like McKellar, but he is frustrating at times.

I’ve just listen to the radio leicester interview with mcKeller, and there’s no doubt he wants to win but he seems to be weighed down by the fan expectations, club history and club dna. Where he seem to have slipped into that geordan Murphy mindset of this is my team and I’m sticking with it. Like you say those changes have no real negative impact on that team, but possibly posonew for next season.
It’s hard to not compare it to birthweight in his 1st season who play 5/6 20 year olds through the season, who are now not only 1st choice for us but also their countries.

I found the interview pretty frustrating, I don’t hear other coaches banging on about “23 games” I’ve heard this from him before and he appears focused on it, if this message is being heard by the player, which it surely is, they will feel fatigued. Part of the role of HC is to draw the players attention away from those kind of difficulties and to focus on opportunity and positive's…..

I took it a bit the other way that he’s trying to take the pressure off the players, especially those that have been publicly criticised. The players will know they’ve been under performing and weather we agree with the team selection or not, hopefully those players hes supported and stuck with will now put in a big performance for him, as he looks like he’ll struggle to take much more himself.

[Tiglon]

I don't see any reason to even begin to suspect he's "lost the dressing room". The players look 100% committed, and I'm sure the dressing room will be signposted anyway.

McKellar did recently say that they have got the "preparation" wrong this season. There have also been suggestions on here that the Head of S&C is leaving. For me it's positive that Dan is already working out what could have been done better this year, learning from it, and taking decisive action.

[AViewFromLe2]

I know a few players personally - it is total rubbish to say he has lost the dressing room - they couldn't be more behind him.

FACT

I am with Bunchy on this. I had a conversation with an agent of several of our players yesterday, who did advise he still has the faith of the players. I also had a chat with one of our journalist contacts who is speaking with players/player agents more often than I do, and he also fed back that the feedback is still positive and the mood in camp is still supportive.

[TigerFeetSteve]

Two massive points

One, he seems to have lost the dressing room, and the result tonight will go a long way to decide that factor

Secondly, its blooming obvious the majority the players are not nearly fit enough. Youngs is a prime example. Shocking for Professional Athletes, but its the Head Coach who must take 80% of the blame.

1. All whisperings I've heard says this is nonsense and a lot of the players want him to stay and want coaching consistency.

2. Look at the rumours on the transfer thread and it seems that McKellar is unhappy with Ollie Richardson, he's basically almost admitted that our S&C is not good enough in an interview. So whilst the head coach and players should carry some of the blame the clubs head of S&C needs to shoulder a big chunk of that. IF we get a new head of S&C that is McKellar's pick over a guy he'd maybe not met before then maybe it's 80% HC responsibility

[AViewFromLe2]

I don't see any reason to even begin to suspect he's "lost the dressing room". The players look 100% committed, and I'm sure the dressing room will be signposted anyway.

McKellar did recently say that they have got the "preparation" wrong this season. There have also been suggestions on here that the Head of S&C is leaving. For me it's positive that Dan is already working out what could have been done better this year, learning from it, and taking decisive action.

That is my takeaway from it all. Dan also said there was plenty of learning to be done, he's also said that he has been listening this week in his media chat. I suspect a healthy but constructive clear the air sessions have took place, and hopefully lessons learned to drive improvements.

[AViewFromLe2]

Two massive points

One, he seems to have lost the dressing room, and the result tonight will go a long way to decide that factor

Secondly, its blooming obvious the majority the players are not nearly fit enough. Youngs is a prime example. Shocking for Professional Athletes, but its the Head Coach who must take 80% of the blame.

It is not the Head Coach who gets them fit, it is the Head of S & C, and we're making a change there. I appreciate McKellar hasn't had a perfect year and he is at fault for a fair few things, but the obsession of pinning all the blame on him is silly.

[AViewFromLe2]

McKeller cannot win…..lose and he gets stick…..send a weakened / experimental team and lose there will be huge disappointment with the fans. Sale are in contention for a top 4 so for the integrity of the competition, Tigers should put out the strongest available side to try to win it……not experiment.
If Quins, Bristol or Bath were to miss out on a play off place to Sale because Tigers put out an experimental team and lose to give Sale the 5 points, that does not sit well with me.

I think the issue most people have is that we're not talking about a hugely experimental team, and some of the players picked are just as experimental in different ways. We're not talking about dropping Wiese for Ilione, or JVP for Myall.

Dolly has hardly played for 2 years, he's as much an experiment as FTT or Vanes would be - but he's an experiment we gain nothing from.

Whitcombe has plenty of Prem experience, he's at a similar level to Van Wyk.

Shillcock has played wing once in his career before. Now I'm someone who believes wing and full back are, these days, very similar positions but Shillcock at wing is still an experiment to a degree, just like Kinder would have been.

I'd be interested to see stats of young players opportunities at Tigers this year vs other Prem clubs. We certainly wouldn't be the first team to give someone a Prem debut this season and it isn't something we should be terrified of.

I don't want to be too critical of McKellar, I can imagine he's under a huge amount of pressure and having experience in his 23 feels safer for him. But, if you don't experiment, how are you going to learn anything?

The coaches see these youngsters in training and maybe they just aren't quite ready yet, I don't know. It just seems like now is the best opportunity to take a small risk and experiment just a little bit.

100% this. The idea that playing Whitcombe, FTT and Woodward is experimental is silly stuff.

[MCC1964]

I can’t get my ahead around all these criticisms and doubts surrounding DMK. He was hardly going to come in and strip absolutely everything out from players to staff. He’s had a season to learn and assess what he has and he now deserves time and patience for:us to start to mould things to how he sees fit. And as for ‘he seems to have lost the dressing room’….oh dear me.

We all know it’s very fine margins in the prem these days. Snatch a couple of those tight finishes we had and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

I do agree though about fitness levels. As much as the end of the Bristol game was about the benches, I definitely got the impression from where I was sitting that some of the lads were blowing a bit. But then again I guess we all see what see want to see.

[ay2oh]

I can’t get my ahead around all these criticisms and doubts surrounding DMK. He was hardly going to come in and strip absolutely everything out from players to staff. He’s had a season to learn and assess what he has and he now deserves time and patience for:us to start to mould things to how he sees fit. And as for ‘he seems to have lost the dressing room’….oh dear me.

We all know it’s very fine margins in the prem these days. Snatch a couple of those tight finishes we had and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

I do agree though about fitness levels. As much as the end of the Bristol game was about the benches, I definitely got the impression from where I was sitting that some of the lads were blowing a bit. But then again I guess we all see what see want to see.

Agree. People calling for McKellar to be sacked need to have a word with themselves.