Tony Smith BACK in Super League

I have always been a big TS fan so obviously I wish him well. I think this is one of those jobs where it is really difficult for the coach to do well. When you have a coach who has been at a big club in the past, with big budgets and top players, competing for/winning trophies, and they go to a smaller club with lower budgets and more limited facilities, the coach is on a hiding to nothing because he brings a higher expectation due to his reputation but has to adjust to a different environment where it's hard to succeed. Look at Monie at London, Noble at Salford, Millward at Cas, I guess Sheens at Hull KR too. It rarely works out well. Usually the coach goes for a year or two and then gets fired and the club will take a new approach with an upcoming coach or someone from the championship.

TS could also find it difficult that if he quit in 2017 because he fell out of love with the game, he might find he feels the same now. The game is still stagnant like it was when he left, it's not like it was when he was at Leeds or early days at Warrington.

I wouldn't write TS off, because he had to start at the bottom when he first came over and took over Huddersfield who were a club in rotten shape, permanently bottom of the league, he got relegated in his first season and had to fight back out of the championship and re-establish Hudds as a credible team, which they have been since. That was a bigger challenge than the one he faces at Hull KR now and he was successful then. Back then he was a young coach with energy and a new approach, so he was able to energise the club. You wonder whether, as coaches get older, they lose some of that freshness. But John Kear seems to be good at this sort of job, so it is possible.

Maybe I'm in a minority here, but if he does well at Hull KR over the next couple of years, and a coaching vacancy were to arise at Warrington....
In fact being totally honest, if Price were to announce he was taking an NRL job for 2020, I'd give Tim Sheens a call!