hull2524 wrote:
hull fan in peace, why do you think its gone bottoms up? you see coaches leave all the time and in most cases the team they leaving up the ante, on a side note fc and kr have sold the most tickets for next week, fair play to all the fans
The obvious explanation is that the manner of Smith’s announcement just sucked the air out of the club. I suspect it is more complicated than that. We’ve had a lot of long-term injuries to key players. Our style of play maybe means we tend towards the streaky. However, it’ll be remembered as the season Tony Smith had a strop and the wheels came off, I’m pretty certain.
There’s that old question about whether it is better to be lucky or good. But they’re not mutually exclusive. I’m not far enough down the revisionist rabbit hole to say he isn’t a good coach. But…
He had the longest losing streak of any SL coach not to be sacked at Hudds and took them down. He was undoubtedly lucky to get that golden generation at Leeds. They were probably lucky to get him too, but they did better afterwards without him than vice versa. The 2008 World Cup was a bit of a disaster but was described as ‘taking England to the semi-final’ by the BBC ahead our CC twatting by Hudds this year. Give a dog a good name and all that. At Wire he had Moran’s cash behind him. At Rovers, Sheens got the blame for the very iffy performances that continued even after Smith took over, but we were saved by Wakefield beating London… and then got quite a lot worse in Smith’s first full season. The pandemic meant no relegation and gave us a chance to recruit a bit earlier… Takairangi, Vete and Sims. Hmmm.
Overall, I think if he goes now you could make a case that he has, if not burnished his credentials at Rovers, at least not undermined his reputation. That 19-0 play-off win vs Warrington being central to the argument. If we continue in this vein, it might get rather bleak.
