The more I think about this issue, the more I think people are being extremely short-sighted. I was absolutely devastated when Smithy said he was leaving. I knew immediately that we would go downhill this year, simply because we had assembled a team with so many players who seemed incapable of performing for any other coach than Smith. I was on the "our cheap club is so stupid blah blah blah" bandwagon initially, but after I've had time to think about it, I'm having trouble putting too much blame on the club.
To those saying "oh we should have offered him a 4 year contract like the Roosters did", lets be realistic here, do you really think that we had the finances to take a risk like that? It's easy to sit back now and say "oohhh but results this year speak for themselves, we should have offered him that!", but let's try and look at it in perspective. If things had have turned sour for whatever reason (as they unfortunately have a habit of doing when Smithy is involved), does anyone here truly think that we would have had the finances to pay out the rest of his contract, and hire a new coach? I would have given him a 2 year extension (instead of our 1 year extension), but other than that, I'm not sure if I would have done anything differently.
The Roosters are a different kettle of fish. They have enough money that they can afford to take the crazy risk of putting a coach on a 4 year contract, because they can easily pay that out. And even if we had have offered him a long contract like the Roosters did, their offer was still a lot higher than ours could have been. Does anyone really think we'd win a bidding war with the Roosters?
When the Chooks had enough money to offer him a 4 year contract on extremely high money, they could offer him the chance to move to Sydney to be close to his daughter, they could offer him a better playing roster, they could offer him all the facilities in the world, they could offer him the freedom to buy who and what he pleased without having money to worry about, they could offer him the dream of once again rebuilding a club in crisis...did anyone really think we could keep him? From what I've heard, as soon as the Roosters got in his ear he was gone...before The Knights or even Brad Fittler knew they'd spoken.
I know I'll get abused from all angles from saying this, but as soon as the Chooks displayed interest he was gone. They're the perfect club for him, and from the stabs he's been taking at us, Newcastle obviously wasn't. sh*t like this happens, and although I wish the club could have done something, I didn't like their chances.