Brian Smith Articles

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Ms.Nobody

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This will be the thread, he writes an article once a week and it will be posted here! This week:

Brian Smith: Players have right to take money and run


MATT Petersen might not rate as one of rugby league's champions, but I certainly regard him as one of my favourite players.

It was way back in 2002, when I was coaching Parramatta, that I first came into contact with the man fans soon labelled "Sideshow Bob".

At the time he had played a handful of NRL games for North Queensland and was frustrated by lack of opportunity.

From memory, he joined the Eels for no sign-on fee just an incentive-based, match-payments deal for the rest of that season and wasted no time proving to everyone that he was indeed a first-grade footballer.

Six years down the track, Matt has done just that, playing in 94 NRL games and scoring 54 tries, including a hat-trick for the Gold Coast Titans against Brisbane as recently as April 18.

I admire and respect him for turning his career, and his life, around.

But it seems his game against the Knights at EnergyAustralia Stadium on Saturday might have been his NRL swansong, after the Titans announced on Sunday they had granted him a release to join English club Wakefield.

I realise that many fans, especially old-timers, shake their heads at this type of mid-season transfer. A lot of supporters don't like their clubs losing players at the end of a season, let alone when a campaign is in full swing.

I can understand that. But in this day and age, players who get to stay at one club for their whole careers are an endangered species.

The bottom line is that rugby league is now a business.

Just as people employed in everyday jobs resign and move on if they get a better offer, so too are footballers entitled to do the best they can for themselves and their families.

The reality is that the game has transformed since it went fully professional after the Super League war in the mid-1990s.

Now it is a career path, albeit a relatively brief one.

The elite players may have a decade at the top level enough time to earn a lucrative living and set themselves up for life after football.

But for the majority, their days in the NRL pass all too quickly, and there are plenty of players out there who will testify that the financial rewards are not as great as some might have you believe.

Matt Petersen probably falls into this category.

For players like Matt, they are unlikely to have a host of clubs chasing them with fat chequebooks every time they come off contract.

Sometimes, however, a window of opportunity opens up.

In his case, Wakefield needed an outside back urgently and were willing to offer Matt a deal for the rest of this season and two others, probably for a bigger annual salary than he was on at the Gold Coast.

At 28, and with a young family, it was a no-brainer. The Gold Coast released him and wished him well, and now they have a vacancy and probably some spare cash that could give young flyer Shannon Walker his opportunity in the NRL.

I believe more and more players are going to find themselves in Matt's situation.

The salary cap these days is a very different beast to when it was first created. Most of the clauses and loopholes have been tightened up, further restricting what players can earn.

Clubs have their finances stretched right to the limit. If they are paying a player but he is not getting an opportunity, sometimes it is mutually beneficial for both if he moves on.

Alternatively, a club might have some spare cash and decide to strengthen a particular position, so they approach one of their rivals about releasing a player they believe can improve their roster.

Some people will argue that a contract should be binding.

I tend to take the view that a contract is fine as long as it suits both parties.

If one party is not happy with the arrangement, for whatever reason, then pretty soon you can have an unworkable situation.

I can understand why fans find this confusing, especially if one of their favourite players moves on mid-season.

The NRL's advertising campaign tells fans "That's my team", but sometimes their team can chop and change over the course of a season.

In other sports, this is par for the course.

And in the case of someone like Matt Petersen, rather than feeling let down that they will no longer be able to cheer for him, perhaps fans should accept that all his years of hard work have finally delivered a dividend.
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I hate the mid season transfer, but I think Smithys right, they should be able to on reasonable grounds, but not for some BS (not brian smith) reason like Judas Jamie Lyon
 
I actually enjoy them. I was happy when we got Vuna, Taia & Mad Pup last year. A bit annoyed about Clint Newton but not really caring now!
 
It's better for players to leave mid-season rather than ****ing about and getting in feuds with the club etc.

But I agree with the Jamie Lyon judas comment. lol
 
Brian Smith: Good support staff vital for any footy club
BY BRIAN SMITH
15/05/2008 9:40:00 PM

I HAD a phone call this week from an old friend who rates as one of nature's gentlemen and one of rugby league's quiet achievers.

Old-time footy fans may recognise the name Ron Massey and are perhaps aware that he was the late, great Jack Gibson's right-hand man throughout big Jack's celebrated coaching career.


The tributes have been flowing thick and fast since Jack's passing last Friday night, and rightly so. The guy was larger than life. A legend of our game.


But Mass was alongside him for the whole journey and spent most of that time in the background, without complaint.


Anyway, I've always enjoyed having a chat with Mass, and I was especially happy to hear from him during such a momentous week.


Perhaps because he has been in the game so long and has a real empathy with coaches, he seems to have a sixth sense about when someone is likely to be feeling down after a loss that may have hurt a bit more than normal.


Invariably on those occasions, he will give me a call and always seems to find the right words.


This week he just rang to congratulate me on how the Knights have been performing this year, and that means a lot to me, because Mass and Jack were able to take charge of so many clubs and turn them around.


He also told me how much he enjoyed our game against Melbourne on Monday night.


I've heard that some people think it was a dull game because it was nil-all at half-time.


They obviously didn't appreciate the magnificent defensive effort from both sides, but Mass certainly did and so did I.


We talked over some other rugby league issues and naturally we had a bit of a chat about Jack.


Mass quipped that he knew Jack had died but didn't realise that he had died, too.


I guess that was his way of highlighting the assistant coach's lot in life.


Invariably they are the men working just as hard behind the scenes, but in many cases they are almost anonymous to people from outside their club, because the head coach has all the profile.


I can assure you that every club needs people like Ron Massey.


At the Knights, I am extremely fortunate to have outstanding support staff.


People look at our results against the Roosters, Titans and Melbourne and wonder what the secret of our recent good form has been. The answer is a lot of hard work over a long period.


You can't just produce gutsy defensive displays at a whim. It has to become ingrained in your culture.


The man largely responsible for our steely defence this season is my assistant coach Rick Stone, who also coaches our Central Newcastle team in the NSW Cup.


Stoney is our minister for defence, and the players have been able to transfer hard yards in the off-season into our games.


The results have been obvious on the scoreboard. To keep Gold Coast, and then Melbourne, scoreless for more than 50 minutes apiece is no easy task.


Stoney, and indeed my other assistant coaches Trent Robinson and Rohan Smith have built those foundations. Without their day-to-day discipline and dedication, it wouldn't be possible.


Mass in many ways was the pioneer for the assistant-coach role, doing so many things out of the spotlight that help a club function efficiently.


Rick Stone is from the same mould. A Newcastle boy, he went to South Sydney in the late 1980s and played a bit of first grade, then headed to the bush as a captain-coach.


Everywhere he's been he has done well. Before he joined the Knights under Michael Hagan in 2006, he had built the Burleigh Bears up as one of the powerful clubs in the Queensland Cup.


I really enjoy working with him. He's a qualified footy coach in every sense of the word.


And, like Ron Massey, he's doing it for the love of the game and not the pats on the back.
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Herald
 
post andrew johns era....i think we have more oompf than we did in 2007 and probably, for the past few years.....i reckon the brilliance of andrew johns, is now shared amongst a few players.

i would rather see good players sharing the load than one great player doing it all himself (andrew johns factor).

we're on the improve game by game this year and who knows, we may be looking at a semi-final, as long as we're injury free and the like.
 
Greek Knight said:
post andrew johns era....i think we have more oompf than we did in 2007 and probably, for the past few years.....i reckon the brilliance of andrew johns, is now shared amongst a few players.
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Imagine if Smith had taken over in 2001 instead of Hagan ... I wonder how things would have turned out differently. Maybe with more sensible recruitment and a few more talented players alongside Johns we may have won a few more premierships before he retired.
 
Smith just always seems to bring out the best in the younger players and makes them stars of the future!!
I'll admit at first i was not sure about him but now i have jumped on board the brian smith express straight to the 2008 grand final
 
jamesgould said:
Imagine if Smith had taken over in 2001 instead of Hagan ... I wonder how things would have turned out differently. Maybe with more sensible recruitment and a few more talented players alongside Johns we may have won a few more premierships before he retired.
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i reckon so.....i think hagan was great in 2001, but it was johns who lead his team not hagan. i just don't think he was preparing the knights well enough for the post andrew johns era. maybe he was of the thinking it was too soon to plan so far ahead, but that's what i'd be doing as coach.
 
I don't think Smith would have put up with Johns Drugs sh*t like Hages did.

Lets be realistic here, Smith & Joey's feud would have been ongoing.
 
AussieKnight said:
I don't think Smith would have put up with Johns Drugs sh*t like Hages did.

Lets be realistic here, Smith & Joey's feud would have been ongoing.
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maybe like the stone cold steve austin v mr mcmahon feud of the WWE in the late 90s LOL :badgrin:

"ladies and gentlemen........LLLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTSSS get ready to rumbleeeeeeeeeeeeee" :applause:

about the drugs issue, well, if you have the greatest player in the last 50 years, in your side, why would you say something about his drug problem?

better swept under the carpet and turn a blind eye......
 
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I think the fued was a beat up i saw a few trainings and they were definantly not fighting or arguing as for the drugs i think any coach would have put up with it considering it was joey. Hages did help joey out alot though .
 
AussieKnight said:
I don't think Smith would have put up with Johns Drugs sh*t like Hages did.

Lets be realistic here, Smith & Joey's feud would have been ongoing.
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I think the feud may have started in a 2001 Knights-Parra trial ... meaning if Smith took over as coach in 2001 then the feud would never have begun in the first place! :lol:
 
jamesgould said:
I think the feud may have started in a 2001 Knights-Parra trial ... meaning if Smith took over as coach in 2001 then the feud would never have begun in the first place! :lol:
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I just dont think Smith & Johns would have gotten on, there would have been some sort of feuding.
 
They were going great guns in 2007 until Johns retired. They are both professionals, even if it wasn't a media beat-up (which I think it was - it was coming from the DT, remember) then they'd have still got on with the job of winning footy matches.
 
BS's Latest:

Brian Smith: Don't discount Danny's World Cup chances
BY BRIAN SMITH
29/05/2008 10:25:00 PM

THERE is an old saying that form is temporary, class is permanent.

In the case of Danny Buderus, I think it is more a case of circumstances are temporary, class is permanent.


There has certainly never been any cause to question Danny's form. Nor his effort or commitment either, for that matter.


But over the past couple of years circumstances have certainly changed for our inspirational Newcastle captain and provided him with perhaps the greatest challenge of his career.


During his early years in the NRL, Bedsy seemed to be writing his own script.


By the age of 24, he had won a grand final, represented his state and his country and was established as one of the best players in the world.


Week-in, week-out, he was playing in one of the best sides in the NRL and was surrounded by a heap of elite players like Andrew Johns, Ben Kennedy, Matt Gidley and Timana Tahu.


There were some good hookers getting around, but it was generally agreed that Danny was the best of the bunch by a considerable margin.


He reached the game's absolute pinnacle by captaining NSW and the Kangaroos, and for good measure he was acknowledged as the best player in the NRL when he was awarded the Dally M medal in 2004.


In 2006, Danny put his family before football when he elected to declare himself unavailable for the end-of-season tri-series to be with his wife, Kris, for the birth of their daughter, Ella.


As things turned out, he would have been suspended for those Tests anyway.


In his absence, the Test selectors gave Cameron Smith the green-and-gold No.9 jumper, and the Melbourne and Queensland hooker has definitely grabbed his chance.


In many ways, Smith's rise over the past couple of years is an action replay of what Bedsy did in his early seasons.


Smith has enjoyed the luxury of playing in a dominant Melbourne team, alongside a host of representative players.


Queensland have also won the past two Origin series, just as NSW were the top dogs when Bedsy first started wearing a blue jersey.


And at the same time as Smith has been building his reputation, Danny's cause was not helped by the fact that his club side was in a different cycle and not performing.


Also, as inevitably happens to players towards the end of their careers, his body has suffered wear and tear and that has made it harder for him to play at the same incredible standard.


Given that Smith has captained Australia in his past two Tests, some would suggest he has a mortgage on the hooking job for the upcoming World Cup.


But I would argue that anyone who underestimates D.Buderus could be in for a rude shock.


This guy is a fierce competitor with enormous pride. He never lacks motivation, but in his last season before joining Leeds Rhinos, you can guarantee he will want to sign off on his terms.


Last week's victory in the State of Origin series opener was his first step towards squaring the ledger with his long-time hooking rival.


I have no doubt that Bedsy outpointed Smith in that game. Cameron is still a great player, but Danny clearly took the honours.


If NSW can beat Queensland at Suncorp Stadium in Origin II, then make it a clean sweep in the series finale, then all of a sudden there might be a host of Test jumpers up for grabs.


At club level, I have no doubt that Danny wants to finish his time with Newcastle on a high note.


He's played a heap of rep football in his time, but he has never lost sight of the fact that Newcastle helped him reach those heights.


He will be desperate for one last taste of finals footy before he heads off the the UK and his teammates will be just as eager to make sure that happens.


If all those pieces fall into place a NSW series victory and Newcastle reaching the finals then I reckon the national selectors will have no hesitation naming Danny in their World Cup squad.


Chances are they will choose two hookers for the tournament. I'm confident that sheer willpower will ensure Bedsy is one of them.
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Watching the Footy Show, Crocker mentioned how Ricky will be pushing to exclude players who are moving from the NRL, from the world cup. So im not too sure. If they decide to go with two hookers, he surely has to be there. He is far better than Smith IMO.
 
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