D4mo78 wrote:
Could easily have said Tony Smith wasn't the right coach for Leeds. Relegated with Huddersfield and hadn't achieved anything. But look how that turned out. Good coaches can be in the wrong environments, we've seen that too.
Not quite the case, the time at Huddersfield was very productive for Tony Smith and definitely wasn't the wrong environment, at least not by the time he'd finished with them.
Whilst Smith did take them down in 2001 it was after Huddersfield had already finished bottom three years in a row before he took over but had not been relegated. That fourth season saw him come in at the same time relegation came back and ironically Huddersfield under his guidance were much more competitive than in the previous years and only went down very narrowly, winning more points and with a notable reduction in the number of absolute hammerings they got. The improvement in the way the team played and Smith's impact across the club was obvious even then.
The following year he brought Huddersfield back up undefeated and then broke the mould by keeping them up when they returned to Super League, setting up the years of relative stability in the top flight which followed. Huddersfield were very disappointed when he said he was leaving, even more so when it was later announced he was coming to Leeds. But his work at Huddersfield meant he had already established himself as a bit of a rising star amongst coaches.
