Quote: DHM "Pretty much everything you posted here is contradictory or just plain wrong.
Define "rapidly west"? Do you mean finishing second in the league table (after leading for much of the year), being 60 seconds away from winning the CC and narrowly defeated in the GF by a salary cap cheating Bulls team which rocked out with a pack containing JP, Fielden in his prime and Adrian Morely amongst others. All after losing the most potent attacking player in the league for the business end.
How can we have been "inconsistent" yet finished 1st, 2nd, and 2nd in three of his 4 years in charge and reached 3 Grand Finals? You've fallen into the Whinos trap of only believing we were successful because everyone else was rubbish. Really, you actually believe that the Saints team that won everything in 2006 was not competition for any other season? And that the Bulls faded away to nothing after their domination up to 2003?
"Things only recovered weeks before Smith was leaving"? What nonsense. We topped the table in 2007 for a good proportion of the season and competed head to head with the 2006 all conquering Saints team for the entire year (beating them twice in the regular season) and only missed out on top spot by a single point to them. Then we finished the job with a thumping of both Saints and Wigan to lift the Championship.
It's a salary capped sport - no team has won everything every year since the days of Wigan and Mo's big wallet.
There's rose tinted specs and then there are brown tinted specs - and the brown stuff isn't chocolate sauce.
Coaches can only be criticised, because they can only fail. Unless you win every game you have failed as a coach. Win one Championship and failure is to not win every Championship. Smith won with Powell's team, Bluey won with Smith's team and McD won with Bluey's team. Do you have any idea how f****g stupid that sounds? How can you give credit to a coach for building a winning team but not give them credit for winning with it themselves?
Then we get the "nobody will clriticise Smith" brigade. Well, he did make mistakes - there is no human in history who hasn't - definitely no sporting coach that's for sure - so that's hardly a bombshell is it? Smith turned Leeds into a consistently competitive Rugby League team with a realistic chance of winning trophies - something we hadn't been for 30 years. It's something we have maintained for 6 seasons since his departure. And it isn't because everyone else suddenly turned c**p.'"
spot on.the real measure of all the coaches and players we have had during this great period for the club will probably not come to the fore for a few more years yet.we are still in the midst of our glory period, albeit probably the back end now so its still a bit early to measure the real greatness of particular people during the period.
a few barron years later and we will all look back and will appreciate things a little bit more how they should be I feel.one thing is certain I feel, tony smith will be right up there at the top when talking about figure heads of this great period for the club.