Coach Simply Doing His Job

30 May 2007

BRIAN Smith was one of the best-known figures in rugby league long before he accepted the job that brought him to Newcastle and resulted in Michael Hagan replacing him at the Parramatta Eels.

Like Chris Anderson, another strong-willed coach, Smith is something of a polarising figure. Some good judges of rugby league swear by him while others take issue with his coaching style.

Regardless, he was given a brief when he came to Newcastle and is clearly going about that task in the determined and methodical fashion that has become his trademark.

Having Andrew Johns retire very early in the piece was a crucial blow for this season. His absence makes bringing on new talent more urgent than ever. Sunday's 71-6 flogging by the Brisbane Broncos showed how big a task Smith faces in rebuilding the team.

A day after the thrashing, 100-game forward Clint Newton held a press conference with his golfing legend father Jack to quit the Knights in an unusually public fashion. Other players are tipped to follow him out the door. Until that happens, the loss of one forward does not make an exodus, any more than one big loss makes a club in crisis.

Newton snr lamented a loss of the Newcastle "culture", but the most important culture for the Knights to retain is the winning one.

Yes, there are diehard Knights supporters with fond memories of early sides grinding out occasional victories between strings of honourable losses, but the greatest joy for most fans came from the premiership wins of 1997 and 2001.

As Smith made clear at yesterday's weekly team press conference, he was hired to take the club back to these heights and he has every right, indeed every responsibility, to structure the player roster as he sees fit, and as the salary cap allows.

Coaches live and die by their decisions in the high-pressure world of professional rugby league. Brian Smith knows that only too well. The club's loyal army of supporters must give the new coach time to put his plans for the team into place.

Only then can they judge whether any cultural change at the Knights is for the better.

Graffiti crimes

NEWCASTLE has endured its share of vandalism over the years, with public spaces and landmark buildings repeatedly defaced by graffiti taggers.

Now this mindless stupidity is migrating from the city centre to residential areas thanks to vandals who spray-painted houses and cars in three Cooks Hill streets on Monday night.

If emptying a spray can of black paint over a car windscreen wasn't enough of an insult, the perpetrators were so confident of escaping justice that they were happy to leave their tell-tale signature "tags" behind for all to see.

Graffiti is sometimes excused as a youthful enthusiasm but this was a serious and deliberate crime spree. The perpetrators should be pursued, caught and charged.


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