New Cup coaches of 2024: Smith at Pride
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Season 2024 of the Hostplus Cup is upon us and there are some talented faces among the coaching ranks.
Three clubs have appointed new head coaches, with Paul Aiton, Terry Campese and a returning Eric Smith starting at the PNG Hunters, Townsville Blackhawks and Northern Pride respectively.
In this edition we talk to new Pride head coach Smith about his comeback to the Hostplus Cup, the club's determination to be a finals force, and why he believes some of his players will have their best season yet.
Coaching history
Smith started coaching when he was just 23-years-old in a captain/coach role at Cairns Brothers.
Having moved up north from Tumut in country New South Wales the year prior, Smith played under the tutelage of now Parramatta Eels coach, Brad Arthur. But when Arthur moved on, Smith took over.
Given his young age, Smith didn't know if coaching was something he would pursue once he hung up the boots. But, five years later, when that time did come for retirement, Smith officially kicked off his coaching career in the Melbourne Storm system.
In 2014 he was an assistant coach at the Brisbane Tigers before moving to Victoria a year later to take on the assistant coach job to the Melbourne Storm Under 20s.
In 2016, he moved to the Sunshine Coast with the Under 20s team to be their head coach for two seasons before then relocating back to Melbourne in 2018 to work with the NRL.
One year later, he was on the Sunshine Coast again, this time as the Falcons head coach, with the team finishing atop the Hostplus Cup ladder and at one point going 13 weeks undefeated.
In September of 2019, Smith's former Cairns Brothers teammate Adam O'Brien - who had also come through Melbourne's coaching system - was appointed head coach at the Newcastle Knights.
He asked Smith to go with him and that's where he remained until he got the call from Northern Pride CEO, Garreth Smith.
Q&A with Eric Smith
How does it feel to be named head coach of the Northern Pride?
It's really good to be back in this area. My coaching started here and I have a lot of fond memories of this region. I know how much this team means to the region and how strongly rugby league runs through everyone's veins. It wasn't something I was foreign to and something that excited me. I knew it was a talented area for rugby league. I just received a phone call from Gaz one day. I hadn't met him or really knew of him at the time but he just approached me and said they were on the lookout for a new head coach and asked if I would be interested in having a chat about that. That spiked my interest straight away. Having a bit of an attachment to the area, I wanted to have a talk about it. Having been an assistant for quite a while, the lure of being the head coach again excited me. Even though it's at a different level, there's different skill sets you can learn. So, it flowed on from there. I flew up here, had a meeting with him and the board, and we were able to finalise the deal and get it across the line.
What is your coaching philosophy?
I probably learnt my trade off and was heavily influenced by those I was surrounded by. Firstly, I had Brad Arthur and then I got to go work in the Melbourne system for four or five seasons. That's where I am heavily influenced by guys like Craig (Bellamy), Adam... guys like that. It's well-known they're really big on working hard, on having really big pre-seasons, on being really disciplined around the details of the game and being disciplined around people doing their jobs. My job is to teach the players their role and to be disciplined around that... it is about being disciplined enough to hold them to that. It's not just to focus on the big picture at training. There's small break down areas of the game that need a lot of attention in coaching before you get to the big picture.
Who would you say is your mentor or strongest influence in coaching?
People that I've been heavily influenced by in my coaching career... the biggest three would be Craig, Adam and Anthony Seibold. Anthony was at Melbourne when I was down there as well and he was on our coaching staff at the Knights. I got a lot out of working with him as well.
What are your first impressions of your squad?
I've added six guys to this squad and the majority of the squad are here from last season. For a lot of the guys that have been here before, and even a couple of the new guys, it's the most work they've got done in a pre-season, judging by some of the feedback, which is great. There's been a lot of hard work physically but also a lot of detail. It's not just getting the k's in the legs but detail and a lot of learnings. As a group, I'd like to think their footy IQ has progressed this pre-season... it was an area this squad especially really needed some work on... that educational side of the game. We've had a nice balance where we've done a lot of physical stuff but we've also had a lot of time to get in some learnings and details.
What are your goals for season 2024?
My goals would be the same as every other coach and playing squad in the competition. We want to win. After the 23 rounds, we want to be playing in the last month of footy in September. We want to be playing finals football. Hopefully once we get there, we're playing our best football. We want to have a heavy presence. We don't want to be a number that makes the finals.
Who within your squad will make their mark in 2024?
There's a couple of strong performers that have been leading the way on the field here in Ewan Moore and Evan Child. They've been standouts for a little while and it won't surprise anyone that those two will feature heavily for us this year. I'm hoping they'll have their best years to date, which is a big call because they've already played good football. Outside of this, there's also Dantoray Lui who's had a really, really good pre-season and surprised me. He's come a long way in the time I've been here. New signing Kyle Schneider, he's our captain and he's had another pre-season with the (North Queensland) Cowboys and I'm expecting him to add to our squad and also hopefully play his best year to date. And he won't play Round 1 but I'm looking forward to seeing Dane Aukafolau. He's coming from Newcastle Knights and has played over 100 New South Wales Cup games so he's an experienced player.
