Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 2:25 pm  

Offy1865 wrote:

I think Smith will only walk. I don't see him being sacked.
The reason I say this is, I remember AP saying "he will be the last coach I hire" doesn't sound like someone who will be sacking the coach.

Whether that was AP saying, no matter what smith is staying or was he saying I'll be gone soon so TS can take us up until then.

As I've already said,.I don't see the point in sacking TS, doesn't seem to matter who the coach is, it's always the same old stuff.
Maybe if we had TS after ladders, with that type of squad and money to spend, he would've taken us forward. But being so under the cap etc hence bringing in players that aren't good enough

I always interpreted the "last coach I hire" line as a way of Pearson saying he will soon have somebody in place who will make all those decisions, meaning he doesn't have to. The way I was expecting us to go was Smith to coach us for 2 or 3 years before moving into an upstairs 'Director of Rugby' type role. Smith would then be responsible for appointing his successor, whether from within or outside the club.
I can see us still following this route regardless of how bad results and performances get this year.
My opinion is that Pearson wants to maintain ownership of the club but wants to distance himself from having to actually do anything.

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 2:28 pm  

hull2524 wrote:

Smith must be on a very thin piece of ice. But my main problem is how many times can players throw the coach under the bus then just carry on. It's every year with hull . It's a never ending circle. Smith should have the bottle to drop those not performing which would be a lot. But at least it would show who's boss. For me the squad he picks for Huddersfield will say a lot.Our forwards yesterday where awful. Since I've been watching rugby if your forwards are getting mullered you won't win a match. Plus Smiths excuses are wearing thin. I'd have said that display is not acceptable there in training Sunday Some will be dropped next week the others are on last chance saloon.

I know, from reading other threads, that you and I are part of the group who have been trying to keep the faith, trying to see some positives (however minor), trying to see a least some chinks of light in the darkness. The fact that the likes of ourselves have just about reached the end of our tethers speaks volumes about the level of disenchantment within the faithful today.

I too have a couple of doubts about Smith's departure. Firstly, does Pearson have the finance to terminate Smith's tenure? I have a suspicion he can't remove him even if he wants to.
Secondly, if not Smith, then who exactly picks up the reins (poisoned chalice, more like) for the foreseeable future and beyond. There doesn't appear to be an obvious list of candidates right now.
Thirdly, would it make any difference? As you point out, there seems to be some entrenched issues at the club which no-one appears to be capable of shifting. Coaches come, coaches go, yet the same old problems seem to stay. We could make yet another coaching appointment and still find ourselves no further along the path.

Having said all that, something has to change, and soon. We cannot go on like this for much longer. Someone (Pearson/Smith/A N Other) has to take hold of the situation and bring about real change or we are finished as things stand. These are some of the most depressing times I've witnessed in my 50 years of following the club.

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 3:00 pm  

Doesn't help when the Head of Strength and Conditioning Calum Christopherson leaves for HKR, and is not replaced. Other clubs such as Salford employ 2 Strength and Conditioners, we don't.. Also Seamus McCallion our ex Head Physio, gone..

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 4:16 pm  

mean_machine wrote:

Fundamentals. I sometimes think when a team is struggling why don’t coaches just focus on these things. You’d accept a fairly conservative game plan if it meant the starting point of

-play people in the positions they are best in. Hookers at hooker, props at prop etc. don’t overthink it
- kick well, chase hard and ask teams to go 100 metres
- be as fit as possible
- don’t cut corners or try and be clever for penalties
- small effort areas. Forming scrums quickly, celebrating small wins, kick pressure etc

Sounds so basic, but I just don’t see you lot doing much of this at the moment. What’s happening on the training pitch every week? What’s the plan? I think most can accept getting beat but if your senior players cba to do the above then it’s a coaching issue. I think sometimes as fans you can over complicate what is happening and think bigger picture but there’s a lot of low hanging fruit which can be dealt with immediately that just isn’t happening

Hit the nail on the head and why i have been critical of Smith for several months now.
Like in football when a team leaks goals and a new manager comes in what do they do? They concentrate on the defence and build the team from there, then slowly start to apply a pressing game and more attack.
Its the same in R/L Defence the priority,fitness to cope with the extra work,then start to apply an attacking structure
Smith has done nothing like this since he arrived apart from make this team into the most undisciplined in the S/L.
His time is up and Pearson has to climb out of his shell tomorrow,apologise to fans and sack Smith and his pal with immediate effect .
Cant say ive seen any difference since Grix has been here but i think fans will be prepared to give him a chance till the end of the season.
Also bring back Gaz Ellis as assistant coach

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 4:23 pm  

hull2524 wrote:

Smith must be on a very thin piece of ice. But my main problem is how many times can players throw the coach under the bus then just carry on. It's every year with hull . It's a never ending circle. Smith should have the bottle to drop those not performing which would be a lot. But at least it would show who's boss. For me the squad he picks for Huddersfield will say a lot.Our forwards yesterday where awful. Since I've been watching rugby if your forwards are getting mullered you won't win a match. Plus Smiths excuses are wearing thin. I'd have said that display is not acceptable there in training Sunday Some will be dropped next week the others are on last chance saloon.

it will melt tonight

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 4:39 pm  

BP1 wrote:

I made this same point last night on the game thread.

When it's not going very well, go back to basics and start afresh from there. It is a truism in all sports, be they individual or team. Keep it simple, keep it direct, keep it straightforward.

Even if you are not the best in your sport, there are two aspects that everyone can work on and improve: Fitness and organization. If we could see positive indicators within our team that those two aspects were being addressed then there wouldn't be half the amount of criticism being aimed Smith's way that there is today.

The fact that we can't see even the basics being carried out to an acceptable level (in fact they would appear to be getting worse judged on the season so far) has to be the responsibility of Smith, and him alone. We would excuse/accept the fact that there is simply a lack of quality within the playing squad if this was to be the case, but fitness, organization, commitment and desire have nothing to do with being a world-class player.

Smith's position this afternoon looks, to me, the same as Peter Gentle the day after the Huddersfield play-off humiliation, untenable. I've tried to back him, given his track record as an experienced coach, wanting him to succeed, to turn our club around, I've tried to search for positives (even small ones) as I'm not someone who believes that sacking your coach/manager every time you hit a bump in the road is a way to find stability, but even I ran out of patience during yesterday's shambolic first-half.

My feelings about Smith this afternoon are exactly the same as I felt about Gentle after that Huddersfield game; he looks a busted flush I'm afraid. Whether replacing him (and with who?) will change matters (given the low-level squad we will still have) I have no idea, but this current situation simply cannot be allowed to continue or drift along aimlessly, we could disappear for good.

Reading this forum today, it's difficult to escape the feeling that something fundamental snapped with the faithful yesterday afternoon. The final straw being thrown in the bin. It's not even a saviour we are looking for, just someone to instil some pride and commitment into proceedings, to give us back a club to believe in once more, as we have all believed in for a large proportion of our lives (whatever our different ages, some older than others). We have reached the point of no return. We need a change, but I fear it might not be coming.

Tbf to Gentle he managed to finish 6th with a squad assembled at last minute in 2012 with I think our best home record ever at the MKM. Even though the 2013 playoff defeat was embarasing lets not forget it was a round 2 playoff defeat and we'd lost at Wembley in a game spoilt by a downpour. Legend has it the players downed tools, we never know what might have been had he stayed (2014 and 2015 were poor under Radford)

Id take the above level of league and cup finishes right now!

[Chris71]

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 6:05 pm  

UllFC wrote:

Tbf to Gentle he managed to finish 6th with a squad assembled at last minute in 2012 with I think our best home record ever at the MKM. Even though the 2013 playoff defeat was embarasing lets not forget it was a round 2 playoff defeat and we'd lost at Wembley in a game spoilt by a downpour. Legend has it the players downed tools, we never know what might have been had he stayed (2014 and 2015 were poor under Radford)

Id take the above level of league and cup finishes right now!

Said it many times Gentle certainly wasn’t the problem and had AP backed him to do his job we certainly wouldn’t be anywhere to the mess we are in right now.

For me the way AP handled things then was probably the start of the problems that have become deep seated issues that are now ingrained in to the fabric of the club.

The one coach he needed to give time too he pulled the trigger on far too early and then hired the one who lead the revolt all because Gentle was a proper coach and made train hard

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 6:24 pm  

Smith saying that the players are fatigued after 5 games and that's why we're struggling puts Clifford's comments about pre season being a piece of pi$$ into context

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 6:38 pm  

Hi all,

This is my first post so wanted to just take a brief moment to say hello to all fellow FC fans and rugby fans in general. I have read posts on here before for quite some time and decided to join to get involved in the discussions.

I think the question of whether Tony Smith stays or goes isn't the right question to be honest. That's not in defence of Smith at all because, let's face it, yesterday's performance was pretty indefensible. No defensive structure, no attacking structure, no game plan. That all lays at the feet of the coach and the coaching staff.

But this is a wider issue than the coach. Because this kind of performance is something we have witnessed for years and it doesn't seem to matter who the coach is. I think back to the comments made by Shaun McRae all those years ago about there been a cancer at the club. Those comments came after a similar hammering with questions being asked about players' desire, effort, commitment and pride in the shirt. It's affected every coach in-between him and Smith at some point and it's often been the eventual downfall of those coaches. And so it may prove with Smith too.

So instead of asking whether we need to change the coach again, what we have to be asking first and foremost as a club is why does this keep happening regardless of who the players are or who the coaches are? We've also seen ownership change hands in that time and multiple CEO's. They all change but the malaise, culture, cancer, whatever you want to call it always remains. Until someone can figure out what the club needs to do to eradicate that for good then all a change of coach is going to be right now is a reactive move, a shot in the dark in the hope that it provides short term relief until the cycle starts to repeat itself once more.

The club desperately needs a long-term plan for me.

Re: Smith - should he stay or should he go? : Sun Mar 17, 2024 7:08 pm  

Chris71 wrote:

Said it many times Gentle certainly wasn’t the problem and had AP backed him to do his job we certainly wouldn’t be anywhere to the mess we are in right now.

For me the way AP handled things then was probably the start of the problems that have become deep seated issues that are now ingrained in to the fabric of the club.

The one coach he needed to give time too he pulled the trigger on far too early and then hired the one who lead the revolt all because Gentle was a proper coach and made train hard

Spot on…I went to a u-21s game and Gentle was there to watch as was some 1st teamers.Always felt he was unfairly sacked as had us playing good rugby but his assistant was wispering in Pearson ear.For me Smith,Gene,Davidson and Grix can go..mayoharsh on Grix but not seen anything different from him to what Ellis was doing.Doubt we have the money to do that or go all out for Rowley.Pearson got his fingers burnt with Hodgson But there must be a assistant down under who would relish it.Another Peter Sharp would do…stood no nonsense and had us playing well.