I liked the shot of the water sprinkler, really brought the whole piece together

Chuck Norris could change 20 years in 3-4 days, no problem.

I thought it a tad pretentious.

Tied the room together?

I loved the bit when he was asked if Richie Mathers would walk straight into the team - "Definetly not, he'll have to earn his stripes like everybody else" The man is a breath of fresh air.

Now thats what we've needed, a coach who doesnt take any crap

i only get sound, no idea how i get a picture

Here we go again!

The audio was out of sync all the way through wasn't it?

Great interview by Tony Smith. I like the way he presents himself in a calm manner and it is evident that he is doing the right things. Rome wasn't built in a day remember.

I know it's a little to early to ask this question, but I'll give it a go anyway. I remember just a few weeks ago, we were getting hammered by everybody and everybody wanted Lowes out, I remember a few people debating who we wanted, quite a few were against Smith after the world cup, and quite a few were pro-Hanley and a few others, stating we needed discipline and somebody to change the culture.

Now, I understand it's a little early to say and I can understand if some would rather wait to answer, but; do we now feel we've made the correct choice? Do we feel he's the man we've needed for so many years? After he let Gleeson go for not wanting to be here, and so on, do we feel the board have finally made the correct decision and appointed a man the club needs?

Without a doubt . Tony Smith will be the best thing that took place for the wire other than the move to the HJS. In Tony Smith we trust

oh most definatly. the man is world class.

Tony Smith is the best thing that could have happened to this club.

Some patience will be required but here we have the missing ingredient.

All we we need now is the other missing ingredients; good players.

Now, now.

No need for that.

looks like a man on speed and never looks at skents or the camera once. A part from that all seems good so far.

You won't get a pic if you are using Firefox. If you are, open the file in Explorer and you'll see the picture too.

HTH

cheers geezer

I was one of those that a few weeks ago would have liked Hanley as our next head coach. I do think that the club has appointed the right man for the job but I think the club has deep down realised that they need to back the coach 100% in what he wants to do. For me that part is just as important.

If we had appointed Wayne Bennett and in his first month in the job he tried to arrange a transfer of our star centre. The club said Hold your horses this fella is going nowhere, then maybe he would have been the right man in the wrong situation. TS comes with the winners medals (in recent history) and record to give him the power to demand support from the club. No disrespect to PC or JL but neither of them had that sort of clout or possibly the inclination.

There is no doubt the club has had great ambition for some time but through various factors has been unable to achieve that.
One thing that stands out from that interview was the statement that Martin Gleeson has wanted out for 12 months, did the previous coaches not look at a deal to let him go or were the club against his transfer?

In terms of Hanley, yeah I still think he would have done a great job and reading about his past coaching exploits was able to improve the players he had out of sight. You only have to look at Doncaster last season. Some of the vibes that I hear in player / coaches interviews about going harder in training and wanting to be here is the sort of thing I would have expected from any top coach (Hanley included). From what i read Hanley did have technical coaching limitations but his ability to improve players and get the right attitude is unquestionable.

One of my main reasons for wanting Hanley was that if he was our coach he couldn't inflict the pain he did as a player if he was coaching another SL Team. I just hope that he doesn't end up at Wigan.

My only reservation at the minute is the rumours of more big name overseas signings. I would much prefer young british players being given the opportunity even if they were from lower league clubs. If the rumours are true, as current England coach this might prove to be a sort of conflict

Well maybe he did lean something from the World Cup.

this may come back to haunt me but i don't think you need to worry about that or any other club either...from the horses mouth he is retired from rugby and is concentrating on playing tennis from now on

Now Smith is here we have no more excuses for failure. We need to stick with him and accept that his decisions are part of the development of the club even if we don't like them. If he decided to walk the message would be very clear and very very worrying.

Depends what you mean by failure? What are our ambitions under Tony Smith?

He can't turn a team of underachieving, spineless players into world beaters over night. He needs to lay his foundations, get rid of the dross and the players who don't want to be here, and freshen things up both in terms of ability and attitude. If he only stays here for 2 or 3 years, I won't be expecting silverware, but I think he'll leave the club in a fantastic position for whoever comes in after him.