SMITHY: A Sharp mind and a fine coach

Some people can say a lot without saying a thing. It happened very quietly earlier this week when Peter Sharp, the Cronulla Sharks’ reluctant interim head coach, left the Woolooware building with a polite resignation.

Sharpy can really talk, but has the happy knack of knowing when not to.

There are plenty of things he loves to crack on about: footy for sure; music not far behind; his two adult sons; Maitland, his childhood home; and Newcastle, where he made his name as a bustling backrower in the 1970s and as a junior rep and reserve grade coach at the Knights in the ’80s and ’90s.

With just a little bit of music and social imbibing he can fill a room with laughter, usually with self-deprecating stories of his life and times on the tools as a “colour blind sparkie”, or in London as a crazy young man labouring, watching QPR and that Kombi trip across Europe.

To read more Brian Smith, outside The Roar, check out his website SmithySpeaks.

The same man is the most intense human I have ever encountered on match day in the coaching box. Yes and that’s coming from me!

I though it was hilarious when told the tale of Sharpy driving home from Gosford post-match and leaving his wife at the ground. I stopped laughing when I was reminded I’d done it too, although I only drove out of the car park before realising my error – Peter did the whole F3. Now that’s focus on footy.

But take it from me, Sharpy is one of the funniest people you could ever come across.

Phil Gould’s tribute to him this week in the Sydney Morning Herald suggested he assisted every head coach to be the best head coach he could be. That’s exactly what Sharpy twice did for me – and three times all told – as an assistant at Parra.

My first contact with him was the interview for Parra’s reserve grade position as we both began at that great club in 1997. He arrived in a suit – that he later described as one of “John Lennon’s castoffs” – and a brief case, apparently to impress me.

I asked him some months later what was in briefcase? “Corned meat and pickles sandwiches”.

He continued to make all of us at Parra laugh and become a better footy club before leaving to be assistant to Bob Fulton at Manly in 1999.

The veteran Manly boss only lasted several games that new season, coincidentally retiring the day after he broke the then all-time record for number of games coached by any coach in history. The Eagles were in a mess, struggling near the bottom and headed for unusually tough times ahead when P Sharp was thrown the reins much earlier than was planned.

This was to become a feature of Sharpy’s head coaching career.

There was a lot of stuff going on at that time, as Super League, the Northern Eagles, and some powerful personalities tore that place to bits. The coach never had anything like a fair go.

Showing how highly rated he was in the wider coaching community, Melbourne Storm snapped him up for two seasons as an assistant immediately after the five year stint on Sydney’s north shore. A short stint back at Parra with me followed, before a mid-season call to become head coach in Hull, another club in turmoil after sacking their coach. Hull remained in turmoil when he left two seasons later.

To get a stronger feel for the esteem in which he is held, please recognise the qualities anyone in the work force must have to do three stints in one place. These qualities kept him in the coaching game, which all started at Newcastle in 1988 with the SG Ball junior team.

His recent midseason ‘promotion’ to Cronulla’s head coaching position, after assisting Shane Flanagan for the past three seasons, seemed wrong to me from the start and, I suspect, to the reluctant head coach. But, as ever, Sharpy did what the footy club asked of him, even in these most unusual and uncomfortable of circumstances.

If the recent public attack on his commitment was not enough for him to pull the plug, the Todd Carney episode was.

When a man who has committed himself for 25 years to his clubs, teams, players and staff is questioned, he is entitled to wonder if he would be wiser to remove himself from that environment. Working in the pressured environment of NRL footy is one thing, working without respect is too much.

It also makes you wonder about the thinking of those coaches apparently lining up to be considered as the temporary replacement for the temporary coach.

To work in that current environment will certainly offer an experience. Let’s hope there will be something good about it.