Look I'm not going to comment on Brian Smith's people skills because I haven't met the man, nor am I going to comment on his management style, the only thing I'll say is, I would have gotten rid of most of the guys he's decided to get rid of.
Mick Hagan is a great bloke, i've met him a few times, and he's the most polite, mild mannered bloke you'd meet, and to be honest if I was a player I'd want him as a coach because he seems like such a good bloke. However Hagan is probably too nice to make the tough decisions, he let go alot of juniors who are now starting to have success at other clubs. Anthony Tupou has played for NSW and Australia, Greg Bird has played for NSW, these 2 spring to mind immediately. The players of similar age to bird and Tupou who played 1st grade under hagan are a who's who of nuffies, the likes of tanner, lowrie, brown, andrew price, matt kennedy, tood bates, etc.
Whilst I'll agree that hagan didn't have to resourses smith had at parra, I'll argue that smith never had a halfback who won 2 golden boots and 3 dally M's. Hagan managed to sign run of the mill footballers like reynoldson, newton, mark hughes, etc to huge contracts which combined with the salaries of Joey, Bedsy, Simmo, etc meant that we were never able to secure the likes of Bird and Tupou, or recruit any decent players form other clubs. Although not all the fault can be attributed to Hagan either, Mark Sargeant was clearly not football manager material, his negotiation skills clearly aren't up to scratch and he seemed to be an embodiment of the 'old boy's club'. I remember a few years back when the tigers belted us on benji marshall's debut, alot of fans were asking, where are our juniors? Howcome we don't have young kiwis like Benji? 2 days later Mark Sargeant is on the plane to New Zealand with 'a suitcase of names', and how many blokes did he sign? 0
As for Kirk reynoldson, look he's an honest toiler, and every team needs one, but no team pays 200k for an honest toiler, except hagan and sarge. What was Mark Hughes on a few years back? 300k?
