Revealed: How Tony Smith reacted to news of his sacking

Following the news that Tony Smith was sacked from Hull FC on Thursday, there’s been plenty of outside reaction but club chairman Adam Pearson has now revealed how the Australian reacted to news of his dismissal.

The club confirmed the news via a short statement which did offer a few brief words from Tony Smith, the 57-year-old stating: “I want to wish the club and all of the players well for the future.

“It is disappointing not to see the job through which was always going to be a challenging project and I was relishing the opportunity to see it through.

“I wish everyone at the club the best for the future.”

Chairman Adam Pearson has now spoken at length on BBC Humberside regarding the club’s current situation and how they will replace Tony Smith but of course, the initial line of questioning focused on how Smith had reacted and if the decision was indeed ‘mutual’.

To that, Pearson responded: “Tony handled it as he usually does in a very professional manner but I wouldn’t say that I think mutual covers a number of causes there. He wasn’t happy about it at all. He thought that he’d got unfinished business, that he’d got a job to do, and therefore he wasn’t happy.

“Obviously, I respect that. He handled himself in his normal, gracious and well-mannered manner, but I could tell that he was obviously disappointed and hurt by it.”

Why did it take so long to sack Tony Smith?

It could be argued that the writing had been on the wall for Tony Smith for a long time with Hull FC suffering from a similar run of form last season in which the club lost seven Super League games on the bounce before eventually beating Huddersfield Giants.

Instead, this season the club have been beaten twice by Huddersfield Giants by an aggregate score of 106-28 with the Giants running in 20 tries, seven of which were scored by former Black and White Adam Swift.

That statistic is just one of a number that make awful reading for Hull FC fans with the club also the most ill-disciplined in Super League and among the worst in almost every conceivable metric.

Adam Pearson, who has also sent a message to the fans, reflected on the poor start to the campaign and explained that the week off provides an opportunity for a “restructure”, stating: “Well, it’s obviously been an extremely disappointing start to the season. It’s never easy when you part company with a coach, particularly one with the reputation and track record of Tony.

“I just felt that things had come to a head, that the pressure was becoming too great around the club and that we needed to relieve that pressure and that we needed to go in a new direction.

“Obviously, it’s not ideal. I’m in discussions with various people about various things and they obviously have an input into that equation as well, but I just felt that the time was right while we have this two-week gap in the season to sort things out, restructure and go again.”

Plenty of fans will argue and ask why it took until Thursday, almost five days after the final hooter of that embarrassing loss to Huddersfield, for Smith to be sacked, to which Pearson claimed the decision had been an “evolving thought since the start of the season”.

Pearson said: “Obviously I didn’t just start thinking about it on Monday. It’s been an evolving thought since the start of the season. Unfortunately, the manner of the defeats of the last four have got worse, they’re not acceptable and unfortunately, it’s Tony who’s borne the brunt of that, which is not great but it’s my job to make decisions and after a couple of days, three days of this week, I decided to make that call.

“I’m not sure that three days is that long, it’s been a thought process for a lot longer than that but it culminated on Thursday night for sure.”

The club will now announce a new Director of Rugby who will then oversee the hiring of a new head coach with the day-to-day running of the squad currently being overseen by Simon Grix and Francis Cummings.