McDonald looms large in Leeds' expectations

When you are 6ft 7in and 19 stone, people expect big things of you on the rugby field – and this is the season when Wayne McDonald intends to live up to those high expectations.

Now the equally lofty Barrie-Jon Mather has decamped to Japanese rugby union, where there should be little trouble spotting him in the team photo, the Leeds prop is undisputed holder of the title of the tallest man in Super League.

But McDonald has sometimes stood out for the wrong reasons. He spent much of his time at his last club, St Helens, conspicuously out of favour, and there was a stage last year when Leeds looked like showing him the door to stoop through on his way out of Headingley. When a team is under-achieving, a player of McDonald's stature can stand out like a sore thumb. "Everything you do gets noticed, good or bad," he says. "You can't get away with anything."

The former Wakefield and Hull forward was one of a number of players read the riot act at Headingley last season. "We were told that we were under-performing and something had to happen," he recalls. "It had a positive effect on me."

Observers at the club say McDonald has been training the house down over the winter. "The desire has been there this time," he says. "It's not that I didn't want to do well before, but I've sat down and set myself goals. It goes back to the bad times I had at St Helens. I got into the frame of mind where you're just trying to survive at a club, rather than looking at the bigger picture."

The first glimpse of that bigger picture was last Sunday, when McDonald ran Widnes ragged in a man-of-the-match performance as Leeds launched their Super League season. In the past, he might have been relegated to the bench or out of the squad altogether for a game like today's Challenge Cup tie against the London Broncos; this time, he will be an automatic selection.

"I suppose in the past I've been considered more as an impact player, coming off the bench, so it makes a change to be starting matches," he says.

That new prominence gives McDonald an increased chance of achieving his targets for the season. "I was disappointed last season not to get in the Yorkshire Origin team," he admits, "so I hope to be there this time. Then there's Tests at the end of the season."

As befits a man of his stature, he has set his aim high, saying: "I'm 27 now and, as a forward, you might say I was coming towards my peak. I've put down a decent platform through the season and now I hope I'll be a part of what we achieve at the end of it."

McDonald admits he has been the sort of player who has occasionally needed a boot up the backside, like the warning he had last season. But now he believes the competition for front-row places at Leeds will be enough to keep him on his mettle. Last Sunday, the Great Britain prop, Barrie McDermott, was on the bench, along with Danny Ward, a first-team regular last season. McDonald was partnered – and could be again today – by Ryan Bailey, just 19 and brimming with raw potential.

"He's starting games and playing really well, and people forget that Danny is only 22 and getting better all the time. There are so many good young lads coming through at Leeds that there's healthy competition for places in the squad," McDonald reflects.

By comparison, he is a seasoned veteran with considerable Challenge Cup experience, playing in semi-finals but being left out of Saints' side in a final. He hears plenty about the magic of the Cup from his father-in-law, the Lance Todd Trophy winner David Topliss, and would dearly love to make his own mark on it.

"It's something to relish," says McDonald. "We started really well last weekend and London got beaten, but it could be a completely different story in the Cup."