Quote tvoc="tvoc"Winning in the final represents success - losing represents failure. Sorry if that's too Hull for you but it's just the way I see it. How many sportsmen and women are proud of their runner-up medals?
Reaching the Challenge Cup Final can be a lottery. Going out to the eventual winners in the 4th round or losing to them in the final amounts to pretty much the same thing if the only difference is avoiding them (and/or other better teams) with a favourable draw. Same rules for everyone but it's rare to find a CC winner that has defeated all the other seriously competitive clubs on route. The last Leeds win in 1999 would qualify, IMO.
The coach can control certain aspects but I've yet to see one who can influence a random draw from a velvet bag.'"
Maybe reaching the Challenge Cup final can be a bit of a lottery, but that being the case it's a frankly unbelievable run of good fortune that leads to you winning that lottery 3 times in a row.
It's a pretty raw deal being a coach isn't it? If you finish lower in the league table than expected, that's down to poor coaching. So surely if you reach EVERY final and pick up silverware in 3 out of 5 (I'm including the WCC as a final, which you can disagree with, but it's a single match with a trophy at the end of it) that must be down to poor coaching. Seems fair. But no, failure is down to the coach, success is down to "champion players."
Im a big fan of our champion players, but Brian Mac would (if he could be d reading this stuff) be wondering what more he has to do. I'm glad you lot don't do my annual appraisal...
I've doubted the guy a few times, but I believe that competitive, professional sport is a results business. His results are, in terms of trophies, better than any other coach over the last 2 years.
So he didn't win stuff with London. Jesus wouldn't have won anything with London.