I have always felt it was harsh to blame one person for the problems of many. Yes no Brian Smith side has ever won a GF, and yes yesterday was a terrible eels performance. But gee he gets sides that not many people rate at the start of seasons a long way.
At the start of this year as many people tipped us to miss the top 8 as to make it, I don't think anyone had us in the top 4. We may have finished minor premiers, but I think we were just one of 6 good sides this season. We had some good moments but we weren't absolute stand outs for long periods.
I don't think people looked closely enough at our previous two results. We overcame brisbane at the back end of the game, after losing Hindmarsh. We then beat Manly without Hindmarsh and Fui. People jumped on us. But I think those games masked what effect the loss of Hindmarsh and to a lessor extent Fui had on our team. He is our only international player our only regular rep player.
Brisbane lost their last 7 straight games (ours was their 5th of these).
Manly lost 10 of their last 12 games (wins against canberra reserve grade side, and you guessed it Brisbane). Yes we won without Hindy, but against the two sides in the poorest form in the whole comp, arguably at the time the 2 worst sides in the comp.
Suddenly we play a side that is not a no hoper. Yes the tigers smashed them in the first week of the finals, but that was obviously a bit an off night for the cowboys. They have won 6 of their last 9, 3 losses only to saints and twice to tigers the two teams in the best form. They had also been their as a group last year. They were also tipped by many to be a GF winner this year.
Yet people don't take into account that sort of stuff, instead they simply say Brian Smith lost and there's another one to add to the pile.
Yes the eels were out of sorts on sunday, so were the dragons on saturday. There is plenty that goes into explaining the eels poor performance. Placing too much emphasis on the coach is off the mark for mine.
For mine Brian Smith has only ever actually coached two very good side, the 93 dragons and 01 eels.
Now it has been said that dragons were narrow favs in that match, well I'd say it was about 50-50. But it was a close game an 8 point margin, and for mine the turning point was the first set of six. Their best prop stevens nearly had his thumb torn off trying to tackle lazo and missed all bar 30 seconds of the game. Thats a tough loss.
In 2001, I think the eels were undeserved odds on favs. Newcastle didn't lose a game that season when Johns played, not a single one. So they were as good and proved actually better than the eels. The eels only went down by 6 after a horrible start.
I tend to think people don't actually analyse what goes on in inidividual seasons and matches before making their point.
In saying all that barring injury the eels have a genuine chance next year, and smith is getting on. If I was him I would make this my last shot.
