Brian McDermott gives his views on Leeds Rhinos’ title hopes and believes playing against them will help his side

Brian McDermott is Super league’s most successful coach.

A former Super League Champion as a player, he was part of the backroom staff at Headingley as the Golden Generation began in 2004 before taking on the Head Coach role at Harlequins.

Come 2011 he was back at Leeds as the boss and won the Super League title from fifth in his first two years in charge. In 2012 he also won the World Club Challenge before ending Leeds’ 15-year wait for Challenge Cup glory in 2014 with a 23-10 Wembley win over Castleford.

In 2015 he then guided Leeds to a historic treble, a feat only achieved by three clubs in the history of Super League, before he claimed a record fourth Super League title as a coach in 2017 despite the fact his side had been written off.

However, less than a year later he was handed his notice and Leeds would look in different directions. They would initially struggle under McDermott’s predecessor David Furner before Richard Agar settled things even winning the Challenge Cup in 2020.

Meanwhile, McDermott oversaw Toronto’s promotion to Super League in 2019 is now hoping to repeat the feat with Featherstone in 2022.

Today, he and Agar buttheads as McDermott faces his former side for only the second time having seen Toronto lose 66-12 to Leeds at Headingley in 2020.

Two years on from that, Leeds have developed an exciting squad that many believe will challenge this year and it appears McDermott, who would know all about that, echoes these beliefs.

In an interview on the Rovers’ official site, he said: “We get to find out where we’re at. We’re going against a team who’ll back themselves this year will Leeds. They’ve got a decent chance of being very good this year.

“They’ve put together a really competitive squad, a very balanced squad.”

He also stated that playing against such a talented side will shed light on where his side are at and what they need to do as pre-season draws to a close: “I think we’re going to find out where we’re at this year. We need to have that gage of where we’re at and just the final parts of pre-season are just final touches of everything. You get a real steer on what way it should be based on these games.”

📽️ INTERVIEW | Pre-season Interview. Head Coach Brian McDermott's thoughts on @leedsrhinos and the significance of tomorrow's game.

Full Interview available exclusively on RoversTV Rightwards arrow https://t.co/VMfGCtaC04

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— Featherstone Rovers (@FevRoversRLFC) January 15, 2022

No matter what happens it should be a fantastic game complete with some fantastic players including Leeds’ halfbacks Blake Austin and Aidan Sezer who’ll make their second appearances for the club today. Going up against those two will give McDermott the chance to see how good his side truly is.

You can watch the whole interview here.