Barrie McDermott

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Barrie McDermott (born 22 July, 1972) was an English former rugby league footballer. His position was prop-forward. Barrie now works as a Business Development Executive with his former club, Leeds Rhinos, and appears as a pundit on Sky Sports.

A native of Oldham, McDermott started out with his hometown club before transferring to Wigan where he won a championship and was first picked to play for Great Britain. He had originally wished to join the army, but was unable to do so after an accident with an air rifle that caused him to lose an eye. His early career wasn't short of controversy and he has been described as notorious, mostly due to his aggressive style of play. He joined Leeds in 1995. He missed the Rhinos' 1998 Super League Grand Final defeat against Wigan. He played in Leeds' first Challenge Cup final win for 21 years when he played against the London Broncos in 1999. He scored a try at a crucial time in the game in Leeds' 52-16 win which was a record scoreline. In this game Leroy Rivett set a Challenge Cup record by scoring 4 tries, eclipsing Robbie Paul's achievement of 3 tries at a Wembley final.

Although Barrie missed the 1998 grand final defeat to his old club Wigan he did manage to become one of only the 22nd Leeds player to win the league championship and the challenge cup in 2004 when he got his hands on the trophy after a bruising encounter between the Rhinos and the Bradford Bulls. Leeds won the 2004 grand final 16-8 thanks to tries from Matt Diskin and Danny McGuire.

In 2005, Barrie's last season with Leeds, he won the World Club Challenge. The rhinos won the world club challenge against the then National Rugby League champions the Canterbury Bulldogs. They won the trophy in front of a record crowd for a world club challenge held in Britain. There was a 37,028 strong crowd at Elland road. The Rhinos looked like they were going to go onto more success in 2005 as they reached the challenge cup final for the 4th time in 6 years. They were leading 24-19 with a couple of minutes to go when disaster struck as they conceded a Paul Cooke try which Danny Brough converted to give the men from the east coast the trophy, winning by a point 25-24, The Rhinos season went from bad to worse as they slipped up in the league allowing Saint Helens to finish top of the table. The rhinos finished 2nd and so played Saint Helens at Knowsley Road for the right to go to old trafford and play in the grand final. The Rhinos won and so reached their second consecutive grand final. They had to wait and see who they would play in the final. Saints played Bradford in the grand final eliminator to see who would play the Rhinos at old trafford. The Bulls won so it was a repeat of the 2004 grand final however it wasn't to be a fairytale for the Rhinos and Barrie as the Bulls won the match 15-6.

Barrie played in 2 grand finals, 4 challenge cup finals and a world club challenge. He won 1 grand final winners ring , a challenge cup winners medal and a world club challenge winners medal. Barrie played 283 games for leeds scoring 40 tries including 1 hat-trick.

Although he announced his retirement from the game at the end of the 2005 season, McDermott played another year with Widnes in NL1. After a season playing with his good friend Terry O'Connor he finally retired in 2006.

Barrie McDermott was a Great Britain international with 17 caps. McDermott also earned a solitary cap for England. McDermott went on to represent Ireland at the 2000 Rugby League World Cup and went on to earn 10 caps over the years. McDermott has also represented Lancashire in the Origin Series.

His autobiography, Made for Rugby was published in 2004.

Since retirement, Barrie has worked in a community role at Leeds Rhinos and he is currently working for Sky Sports, both as a pundit at live games and as an off-field character where he regularly appears in light-hearted features with long-time friend Terry O'Connor.

[edit] External links

• Official Leeds Profile
• SouthStander.com Hall of Fame
• 2001 Ashes profile
• RLeague.com Profile