{"id":50827,"date":"2025-08-07T17:36:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T17:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/50827\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T17:36:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T17:36:09","slug":"ex-super-league-boss-tony-smith-explains-what-he-would-do-if-he-was-in-charge-of-the-rfl-total-rugby-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/50827\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Super League boss Tony Smith explains what he would do if he was in charge of the RFL \u2013 Total Rugby League"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                                        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.totalrl.com\/ex-super-league-boss-tony-smith-explains-what-he-would-do-if-he-was-in-charge-of-the-rfl\/\" title=\"Permanent Link to Ex-Super League boss Tony Smith explains what he would do if he was in charge of the RFL\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img width=\"675\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/OH5_0294.jpg\" class=\"bestwp-post-thumbnail-single wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>FORMER Super League head coach Tony Smith believes that a cross-section of opinions is needed to move rugby league forward in the northern hemisphere.<\/p>\n<p>The Australian \u2013 who has been in the UK for over two decades following coaching spells with Huddersfield Giants, Leeds Rhinos, Warrington Wolves, Hull KR and Hull FC \u2013 also believes that the sport needs to be united in order to achieve harmony across it.<\/p>\n<p>When asked what he would do if he was in charge of the RFL, Smith was keen to emphasise togetherness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would just bring everybody, keep united and have a decent plan together,\u201d Smith told\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=G9FpVuP7cyA\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Super League Raw.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think we are good at that and then we don\u2019t promote ourselves on the back of that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow we promote ourselves hasn\u2019t been great but how can you do that when you\u2019re not all united?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo be something special or to have a team that is highly successful \u2013 we are all a team together in rugby league \u2013 we can\u2019t agree on too many things for too long.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t thrash it out, we don\u2019t get enough opinions or cross-sections of opinions and we make frivolous decisions too often.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe listen to one sector and make a decision without getting a complete cross-section. The blueprint has been there for years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Smith believes that the northern hemisphere game needs to take direction from the NRL.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not saying it because of my accent and my heritage or saying that everything is great in Australia but for years they\u2019ve been getting a cross-section of players, fans, coaches, administrators, and marketers in the same room.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can\u2019t do that \u2013 we never do that. We never get the chief executives, coaches, owners and representatives of players in the same room.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe closest we\u2019ve got to is when referees, coaches and players are in the same room. We can\u2019t get all the stakeholders in the same room to get some consensus, opinions and have some good debates and arguments before we walk out and say \u2018we are all in this together\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c20 years ago, the NRL started doing some of that and we haven\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORMER Super League head coach Tony Smith believes that a cross-section of opinions is needed to move rugby&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-50827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}