Just thinking. We keep getting fed the line how Leeds hadnt won anything for 32 years and when Tony Smith came in Bang! Grand finals everywhere (so to speak)

Was it all down to Tony Smith or was it the long term planning of Gary Hetherington or a combination of the two or something else?

Would love to know the opinions of the back to back champions

Oh we are not worthy.

A Wire fan

Both.

But Smith is a very, very good coach.

You will improve immeasurably with him at the helm. He can be abrasive and will rub a lot of people the wrong way.

Whether you're in the position we were in 2004 terms of squad and junior development is another matter.

Without the long term planning of Hetherington, and the groundwork put in place by Powell, Smith would have struggled to get what he did from the team. He was a great coach, but Leeds were already in good shape when he took them on, and was appointed to take us to the next level, rather than stop us being rubbish

Closest there. Smith showed himself a very good coach, but the club was already travelling in the right direction when he took over. Ppwell's side in 2003 was similar in personnel to the 2004 title winning side, and while I believe (we'll never know for sure) that Powell lacked the experience and guile to take that final step to the title, he deserves a lot of credit, along with others at the club (including but not limited to Hetherington) for developing and assembling that squad.

I think, with respect, the task at Wire is rather greater, insofar as that the club seems to have been going backwards for a couple of years if anything and has been attempting to fix the problem by throwing money at big name players.

Smith is good, but he isn't Jesus. It will take more than just him, but with the right culture and plan from the club, and with a bit of time and patience, he might well be the man to get Wire where they want to be.

IMO, of course.

Powell was the general and Smith the foot soldier. Similar to Smith and Lowes now.













Just in case, although I shouldn't really need to.

I think smith will turn wire around and make them contender's but i expect it to take at least 18mth's to 2yrs afterall even TS can't polish a t#rd!!
He will release a lot of players and rid your squad of any bad habits in terms of self discipline.
He imo will prove to be a good coach for wire but that doesn't mean you'll necessarily win anything because while smith is rebuilding wire none of the other top clubs will stand still.i.e ourselves and saints will continue to improve.

Is that actually what you meant?

Edited!!

I dont think it was but he may be right. It happened to Wigan and its now happening to Bradford - Saints and Leeds will eventually go the same way and they will suddenly drop off from what they were. It happens to every great team has its day.

IMO - I think what Smith will do is what others have dared not to - drop any underachieving players - well thats the first seventeen gone! No, seriously he will not let a player, no matter how big or seemingly important and irreplacable they think they are play if they aint pulling their weight.

At Leeds he dropped many a player for reasons we dont know but in the end he got the job done.

By the way, where has the fastest patter on the back gone - sorry Kevin Penny?? He was always there as first man to pat the back of a try scorer but there is more to the game than a clear run at a try line!

However, unlike those teams ours is more sustainable because its' foundations are in our commitment to a youth policy.

That is why I don''t think Smith will enjoy the same success with Wire as he did with us, in the short term. He's a great coach but as an outsider with (admittedly) not much knowledge of your youth set up I think he's only part of the solution.

I agree that success is cyclical though.

Leeds continue to be greater than the sum of it's parts and that's the key. Fill the spine of the team with quality (full back, Stand Off, Scrum Half, loose forward and hooker or two if possible) and fill the rest in as you go along. Without doing this first the best centres and wingers in the world are a waste of resources.

I realise this isn't rocket science but neither is Rugby League.

Just taking Leeds for example:

Brent Webb (World Class and 55 Appearances for Leeds)
Danny McGuire (Leeds product and 192 Appearances for Leeds)
Rob Burrow (Leeds product and 245 Appearances for Leeds)
Kevin Sinfield (Leeds product and 309 Appearances for Leeds)
Matt Diskin (Leeds product and 213 Appearances for Leeds)
Danny Buderus (World Class, so that's a start)

If Leeds weren't competitive now there'd be a serious problem.

If I had one criticism of Tony Smith at Leeds it is that I didn't feel he bloodied enough juniors into the 1st team. Eight in total over a four year period is pretty scant. McClennan by way of contrast has already given nine a run.

Tony Smith is no good at bringing different camps together, see World Cup '08
If thats the problem at Wire he wont solve it, if its just motivation needed I think Wire might actually do something this year

Smith is a disciplinarian - this is what Warrington need IMO. He's not afraid to drop big name players or fan favourites if they aren't pulling their weight - witness Thackray in 2007. Many on here were calling for Smith's head going into the play-offs without our 'best' prop but Smith was proven right in the end.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone like Lee Briers is given his marching orders by Smith at Warrington. Smith needs to show who is boss and may need to upset some of the old guard who have sat through successive seasons of failure.

Tony Smith had already shown at Huddersfield that he could make a team perform better than the sum of it parts would suggest.
In my view had we not taken Smith he would have gone to Wigan with who knows waht impact on them.
I think that Hetherington has to be applauded for:
First, establishing a vision (stands by for flak from some on here) for the club based on local talent,
Secondly, sound financial and business planning.
He then supplemented that by appointing Smith at a time when the other foundations were in place having recognised that Powell lacked the tactical nous and coaching experience to take us to the next level.
So to answer the original question in my usual long-winded way, your management needs to recognise that success won't come overnight or if it does it will evaporate as has happened with the Bulls and Wigan in the absence of proper effective management planning in the broadest sense.
TS will bring better coaching skills than Lowes currently possesses, it will be interesting to see if he (JL) understands, accepts this and i9s prepared to stay & learn.

As everyone else has said It’s all down to the quality of players that Warrington have coming through that will determine how successful Tony Smiths time at the club will be.

There is no doubt that he will get the current squad playing much much better rugby than they currently have but I do feel that any success he has with the current players will be short lived due to the age of the team, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them win the CC or make the GF if Smith gets them playing well but he certainly isn’t as lucky as he was at Leeds with the number of quality youngsters he had.

didnt he get them relegated twice?

If I recall it they were relegated in his 1st year in charge with someone else's squad, they then went unbeaten to gain promotion back to Superleague. On their return they performed way above you'd expect the players thay had available would do. They had structure and a game plan presumably all laid down by Smith.
On that basis alone I was delighted that GH recruited him to be our coach.
I stand by my original point that had we not appointed him to replace Powell he could well have gone to Wigan, definitely to our detriment and their benefit.

Going back to the whole development thing, I dont think people give enough credit to Dean Bell. He put the structures in place that most clubs have adopted now and I dont think its any coincidence that both Leeds and Wigans academies were the best 2 at developing players after he had been there.

The Tony Smith is champion.

But not as many times as me.

Fantastic.

Tony Smith is an excellent coach and he i believe in the long term will turn the wire round. He has a difficult job they have a lot of over paided so called super stars who may just be here for their pensions. Without him we would have won nothing, under Powell the team were going no where. He brought a sense of purpose to the club and brought well. Yes he did not bring success in the World Cup but i wonder who could. The one thing he does so well is get a time that will grind out results and in the future i would welcome him back to Leeds anyday. The best coach we have had in the Super League era.

I'd go further back than even that and look at the stuff Dougie Laughton did .... One thing Leeds didn't have before then was a youth policy.

Your memory must be playing tricks, all Laughton did was spend the clubs money on players past their sell buy dates and nearly get the club relegated. The only reason Dean Bell developed the youth policy as he did was because we could no longer buy players. Laughton was the worst coach we every had.

For me Smith is an enigma - his methods were relatively unknown when he came to Leeds. At Leeds he inherited a squad on the up that contained a lot of youngsters on the verge of something very good.

Smith should be given credit for winning the championship in 2004 and for the whole of that season that was something very special - only two losses in year is some achievement.

However 2004 was the zenith and the team failed to improve under his leadership which hit a real low in 2006 - 2007 it could be argued and has been argued was a result of Smith announcing his departure and the greater freedom the players experienced when the balance of power swung in their favour.

Smith is a draconian control freak - players at Leeds had to agree with him if they wanted to take their wife out for dinner? His uncomprimising attitude is thought by many to have had a detremental effect on the England team in the WC - a complete alcohol ban just one of the measures?

His hardline attitude had seen a players unrest and as a result Smith was not going to have his contract renewed at Leeds - that says much.

Technically he is reputed to be a superb coach - whether is man management style is as good is open to question - that could be a problem in what appears to be a fairly loose culture at Warrington. I can see a fairly big turn around in key personnel in the off season. Smith likes players to play to his pattern - individualism/deviation from his pattern is likely to result in a spell in the reserves.

Interesting times ahead - Warrington with be a better side in the short term

Have to disagree, the financial ruin of the club lay firmly at the hands of the directors. If it hadn't have been for Wigan bankrupting themselves in search of glory we'd have certainly won something in the mid 90's under Doug. He wasn't liked at Leeds for having the bottle to put Schoey in his place.

He did, however instigate a youth set-up long before Dean Bell arrived on the scene - producing Mozza, Paul Anderson, Nick Fozzard, Graham Holroyd, Francis Cummins, Marcus Vass, Mick Shaw, Matt Schultz. If you remember the 1994 cup final, Francis Cummins was up against Bell! Granted not all of them made it big time, but the foundations were in place for the academy.

Returning to topic I think Smith is just the coach Warrington need.