He got relegated, got promoted, finished 10th from 12, with over half their points coming from wins against the 2 below them which included the woeful Halifax who only won 1 game all year so hardly much to brag about beating them. That leaves them being better than Wakey for 1 season. Hardly can claim to set them on the path.

Hudds success is more to do with Ken Davy and him bringing in better players (only 3 of the 17 who played in 2006 CC Final played under Smith)

Anyone you speak to at Huddersfield acknowledges that it was Tony Smith who began the turn-around at the club. To deny that is to deny what is pretty much obvious. Plenty of more credentialed coaches were there before him with better squads and failed to achieve anything. He turned the club and its culture completely around.

I have some sympathy for ThePrinter's views on Tony Smith, even if those views are being used in support of a Pro Brian McDermott agenda.

Tony Smith is always going to be regarded as a hero among most Leeds fans for being the coach in charge when the Holy Grail moment occurred in 2004. Any critique of him is always guaranteed to be challenged quite passionately.

However, the club did underachieve massively in 2005 and 2006 and some of his interviews and facial expressions on TV were becoming increasingly bizarre (just like some of his team selections were). Had Leeds not won that 2007 Grand Final, it would have been extremely difficult to speak of a Tony Smith legacy on the back of 3 unsuccessful seasons in a row.

IIRC, when it was announced in 2007 that Tony Smith was leaving at the end of that season, the opinion of the vast majority on this forum was one of relief and that it was high time for change at the top. Only with the sudden benefit of hindsight did those views suddenly change on the 13th October 2007 at approximately 7:40pm.

Coaches should move on after 3 years regardless of achievements

Enough water to fill the pacific ocean passed under the bridge between smith leaving and hudds getting good.

Sport is a fickle industry, and coaches are judged on results, certainly at the top end. Our last 3 coaches have achieved good results, with at least a title every 2 years.

Any other discussion about whether coach A could have done it with a different set of players is entirely fictional

As a 50 year veteran supporter the last 3 coaches all have achieved fantastic results.

The three clubs that Tony Smith has coached in SL have all improved markedly under his control. The mark of a good coach.

No doubt many Leeds fans were initially disappointed when the CEO announced a relative 'no mark' was being appointed to one of the biggest (and most pressured) jobs in RL but he was the type of no-nonsense coach Leeds needed after Powell had steadied the ship and cleared out some of the dead wood post Lance - Powell got them close but he just couldn't get Leeds over the line most notably over the top of Bradford. Under Powell 2 wins from 13 - both within a four month spell in '02 - otherwise a barren wasteland over three full seasons, losing the last seven despite often coming agonisingly close.

Smith arrived and in his first act dropped the hitherto undropable Francis Cummins ending his mammoth run of consecutive appearances in the process. I would say that decision was merited and long overdue but I think Smith would have done it regardless just for the signal it sent out - we're all here to work, places have to be earned, no player gets selected on sentiment. Leeds beat Bradford on six of their next seven meetings - the solitary loss coming in the '04 QSF. Even after a fantastic season of entertaining rugby who among us (at least those old enough to remember the previous 32 years) can honestly say their heart didn't sink at the very real prospect of another potless campaign. Not under this quality coach - the demons were slain two weeks later at Old Trafford and Leeds haven't needed to doubt themselves since.

Of course there will always be an element of looking back through rose-tinted spectacles and I'd be the first to say that Smith didn't get everything right from my point of view but did I care that night at Old Trafford .... did I f***

About 18 months into smith's reign things went rapidly west and weren't recovered until weeks before smith was leaving.

It was as if Smith went temporarily insane and went on some vindictive crusade to see how many big games he could get leeds to lose against teams they'd beaten comprehensively, sometimes weeks prior.

Losing the CC final....AND the grand final, in the space of a couple of months after dominating the regular season, even managing to finish second in the regular season. Then 2006 began to reach a climax and who could forget those embarrassing defeats to hudds and warrington (who at that time were poor) in the CC and playoffs respectively. Then in 2007 leeds managed to exit the CC at the earliest opportunity against an average wigan team, drop silly points in a poor league with little competition and fnish second.

At this point leeds had just over 2 years of inconsistent, sometimes bizarre performances and playing poorly/ losing big games. Despite their being little competition at the top, and leeds best players in their prime of life it felt as if leeds were completly throwing away their golden era and their chance of success.

Leeds were offered little in the way of explanation from dictator smith, except for unerving sometimes schizophrenic facial twitches and contortions.

Eventually, it appeared when the team could see light at the end of the tunnel and smiths departure in sight, they rallied in october 2007, brought home the bacon and so with smith's departure, the golden era began.

Smith gets a lot of credit for 2004, and rightly so. But it's important to remember that between then and 2007

- we never finished 1st
- we won 1 WCC and 1 GF
- had progressively worse results in the CC

and signed some amazing players like Shane Millard, Nathan McAvoy & Mark O'Neill.

Since being here, MacDermott has made

Hardaker
Jones-Bishop
Watkins
Singleton
Ward
Clarkson
Sutcliffe

regulars, has added several top players (Aiton, Briscoe, Moon) on a limited budget and has kept us at the top & winning things.

Don't forget Griffin, Hauraki, Vickery and Cross.

In the interest of balance.

Sorry for the edit but I couldn't read all that again.

That sounds terrible and yet despite all that under Smith Leeds won their first title for 32 years, qualified for and won their first WCC, finished top under a divisional structure for the first time, won a second Championship, never finished below 3rd in the Regular Rounds with an average top 2 finish over four campaigns, taking 74% of the points on offer in all comps (McClennan 72%, McDermott 66%), with an average result of 34-17 (McClennan 29-18, McDermott 28-21)

_____

As for the start of the golden era Brian McClennan couldn't really have heaped any more praise on the Smith legacy that he had the good fortune to inherit and maintain.

I can recall being stood in the South Stand one evening when Leeds were using the dressing rooms there for some reason so Tony Smith had to walk across the pitch at half time and a huge round of applause went out all around the ground. I have only seen that happen twice before, the last time being David Ward`s last game in charge.

However the seeds of change where planted and the blossoming of a Golden Era perhaps started before his arrival[iGraham Murray joined the Leeds Rhinos as head coach. The turnaround was quick, however, and in 1998 Leeds once again reached a major final, facing Wigan in the inaugural Grand Final, at Old Trafford, Manchester. Leeds lost 10–4 in a tense and very evenly matched game.[33] In 1999 Leeds finally landed the first silverware in a decade, and the first Challenge Cup for over 20 years, with a convincing 52–16 win over London at Wembley in front of a crowd of 73,242.[34][35] Murray signed a deal to coach the North Sydney Bears for the 2000 NRL season and left the club[/i'"