Dave Smith gets mocked by fans

veebs27 said:
Time to bring back some hard ass administrators who know something about Rugby League!!
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Ummm…no.

Dave Smith is doing a great job bringing in the sponsors and what not.

For the clubs who are short of a penny, go look at what Souths have done in 10 years. What the Broncos have done for 25 years.

RL has been mired in the 'old club men' administration for a century.

And all those doomsday merchants out there supping from the cup of Buzz Rothfield and Rebecca Wilson with their daily anti-Dave Smith/NRL rants - these people are paid by the people who held NRL back for 15 years and are miffed they no longer run the show. The issues facing the NRL in 2014, specifically the crowds, are exactly the same for AFL, A League and Super 15. In fact, take a good look at Super 15 crowds and some of the A League crowds this season, and they've fallen away at alarming, higher percentages than the NRL and the AFL has lost ground too. Oh but it's a woe be NRL mentality.

Plus over the past 6 weeks, there has been some scintillating footy, topsy turvy results and big crowds. Who'd have thunk the Tigers and Eels would get 50,000? Great work to the fans AND the admin of the NRL with the clubs to bring that game to ANZ and pump the crowd with ticketing initiatives.

The NRL was stuck for 15 years. Dave Smith has been in the job just over the year. Big strides already in place with him and the Ind Commish. Memberships growing too. Just need to get Sydney teams strengthened (or make a tough decision or two) and get expansion happening in Perth and another team in Brisbane and maybe NZ.

And with fixed scheduling people now know when and where their teams play. And the TV deal ended the first/last rights so next time, the NRL hold the upper hand in negotiating a new TV deal (let's hope 9 lose it or at least freshen/modernise their broadcasts).

Also, with the ASADA thing, Dave Smith has been calm and cool and collected. Compared to Demetriou, he has been a shining light and a positive for the NRL.
 
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The attractiveness of the game has made a huge leap this year, imo. News Ltd of course still focuses on the negatives. I see Paul Kent made a total goose of himself bagging the Fiji vs Samoa test last night ... no surprises there. I wish him, Rothfield, Wilson etc would all bugger off!
 
I just stopped reading most of the mainstream Daily Telegraph media relating to NRL. I don't mind Roy Masters, Phil Gould, Steve Mascord (who has the international game at heart). Ironically, I don't mind some of the work in Big League - a News Ltd production and my wife recently got a six month sport package on TBox for free, so have peeked at some of the pre-match and NRL shows and some of it isn't bad.

The game was in the mire for too long. It can be argued that it is still too Sydney centric and I agree there is probably 1 or 2 too many teams…but who goes? And why? And for good reason? Brisbane, Gold Coast, Canberra, Melbourne, NZ Warriors, Newcastle and North Qld have all added immeasurably to the competition. Everyone can do better right across the board - crowds, members, games, TV. I am hoping too Perth and another Brissy team get in the comp within 2-5 years.

Things will only get better. There's optimism and there's reason. Then there is the mind numbing negativity from the Tele. RL has always done well to bash itself, criticise itself, destroy itself but I truly believe we are in the dawn of a new RL era.

My two cents worth. Happy to hear from others.
 
They bag out Smith for this, but did Gallop ever do anything like this with the fans? How much say did we have in those days? He wouldn't have even gone near social media or fans in general with a bargepole.

The Daily Telegraph has articles about things like saying how rubbish the fixed schedule is ... but then go back a year and they are writing articles about how the game is crying out for a fixed schedule!

I'm with you Mad Hatter, I barely bother reading anything other than the SMH or NZ newspapers for my league news these days.
 
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This about sums up Buzz.
 
Over on League Unlimited they have a thread devoted to 'Buzz', very very funny stuff in there especially about his guest interview on a station from Victoria, it's all there and it's not good reading.
 
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