Dave Smith destroys the NRL in 3yrs and then walks away

[ism22]

I thought you've all been reading the Telegraph too much.

Smith did a good job. He got much better tv deals than any league mug would have like Greenberg.

I do agree that Grant needs to go. And FFS, please don't be Greenberg.

Yeah I had no problem with him, he:
- Detached the NRL from News Ltd, which was his main goal (the guy he replaced was a News Ltd pawn who sucked Murdoch dick big time).
- Signed an awesome TV deal that gets more money than fox previously paid, forced Murdoch to over-stretch on AFL (making it less accessible because lotsa people don't have fox) and put all games on free-to-air which is what fans wanted!
- The Roosters won 3 minor premierships with him in charge. My conspiracy theory is that the Superleague lawyer woulda found a way to rob us of a premiership and make sure we won no minor premierships.
- This year was one of the best GFs on record because the competition wasn't fixed to favour News Ltd or any of their pawns!
- Didn't seed political pro-Liberal messages into the commentaries of every game.

Maybe he did a good job and retired because he was sick of tw@ts with big egos stepping in with red-blooded aggression and NFI about business?

[mightyrooster]

I had no problem with Smith and thought he did a pretty good job considering he had to put up with the constant swiping from News Ltd. Please no to Greenberg.

[Jacks Fur Coat]

Smith was crap had to go.

Bring back Gallop.

[chopstiks]

who wants to run the NRL and all the BS that goes with it... Greenberg.

[Double]

If the new ceo is not appointed from within the NRL's ranks then fans have every right to call for the entire administration to be sacked.
What organisation in a volatile environment such as RL does not have a succession plan in place?

Where do the clubs stand on this, and when is enough enough?

[The Sack]

Dropped by a shoulder charge and thrown out like a water bottle.

[eddie]

Sometimes I wonder how we ever got to this situation. People I'm sure remember the days of the NSWRL & QRL which you never heard from unless it was SOO time and Queenslanders were crying bias.
When and why did the clubs lose control of their operations? to become mere franchises.

I asked Ted Helliar once the question of who owns the website name roosters.com.au and he said it was Easts Group. I asked him why then the Roosters had to submit/request articles and updates to Telstra so that the necessary changes and alterations could be made. Imagine running your own business this way. Imagine using the same website template as all of your business competition where only the name and colours are different...

So you're in the business of RL and have a long and proud history of accomplishments, players and club but you don't own your trading history... you know numbers... called statistics in RL. Clubs don't own them nor can you make them available to your fans and members. No, if you want these stats you need to purchase them from a third party player with all profits filling the coffers of the provider.

If it wasn't for the players and coaches and the quality of the game itself, you'd light a match and burn the lot of them.

This is my vote for post of the year.

If our CLUB had gone the way of Newtown or Wests, I wouldn't even know what an NRL was..........

[Kingbilly]

Smith did a shithouse job, he or at least those that reported to him have done their best to send junior RL (meaning park football clubs, especially kids) back to the dark ages.
Under his regime, if it didn't raise any revenue for the NRL then they didn't want to know about it.

He and his cronies have pandered to the media, CH9 especially and they control the game.

[eddie]

He and his cronies have pandered to the media, CH9 especially and they control the game.

And he pandered to his own deep pockets, while talking shit that makes you think he saw our game as something akin to fake "sports" like wrestling............

[Tommy Smith]

A 1000x better than Gallop.

And 1000x better than snake oil salesmen Greenturd and Shane Jabba the Hutt Richardson would be in the role.

[stephenj]

only took tony abbott two years to wreck australia Aa

[Kingbilly]

A 1000x better than Gallop.

And 1000x better than snake oil salesmen Greenturd and Shane Jabba the Hutt Richardson would be in the role.

Actually knowing Gallop and seeing what he was doing, he had a hell of a lot more interest in seeing the game prosper in at all levels than these morons.
He is very underrated and he actually did a decent job

[Kingsgrove-Loiner]

Actually knowing Gallop and seeing what he was doing, he had a hell of a lot more interest in seeing the game prosper in at all levels than these morons.
He is very underrated and he actually did a decent job

You mean apart from robbing the game blind with his tv rights deals....?

He was a news ltd puppet and probably cost the game in excess of $1B.

[Guest]

I say give Pauline Hansen and Clive Palmer the gig Jointly

If that fails we have that wonderful, faceless commission to fall back on, In Pearce we trust lol

[elo]

The Banker was more a CFO than CEO and he did not "destroy" the game at all, most of the game changing decisions he didn't have any influence over and were signed off by the ARLC. (such as rule changes)

My only reason issue with the guy was he built a massive bureaucracy at NRLHQ, strange for someone with a banking background where streamlining is a focus, I guess he didn't have profit margin KPI's at the NRL to meet.

It was the right time for him to move on, I shudder to think whose next though.