WITH the way the 2017 season has panned out, the end grew seemingly inevitable for one of Warrington Wolves’ most successful and longest-serving coaches, Tony Smith.

Whether it was called at the end of the worst Super League campaign of his tenure, or part way through it, was the major question mark.

Despite growing disgruntlement on the terraces over his team’s style of play and results, the former Huddersfield Giants, Leeds Rhinos and national team boss was rightly given time to try and turn around a campaign that started badly and struggled to recover.

The slide into the Middle 8s, and sloppy performances against Championship clubs Halifax and London Broncos during the series, must have been significant in this week’s exit decision.

His team’s fall from grace has been drastic after last year’s two finals appearances and the second League Leaders’ Shield success of his nine-season reign.

After more than 3,000 days and 300 games at the helm, he has served The Wire longer than any other club he had previously – either as a coach or professional player, in his adopted country or back in Australia.

He loves the place, the people he worked for and alongside – and he has poured his heart and soul into it, no matter the laid-back and sometimes fidgety persona he can give off at times when under the media spotlight.

But just like with a long-serving predecessor, Paul Cullen, the journey is to end incomplete.

For Cullen, after all he had given towards stabilising and growing a failing club from 2002 to 2008, there was no silverware – but Smith was able to pick up the squad he had assembled, make a few tweaks, add a couple of new faces and deliver glorious and historic back-to-back Challenge Cup Final triumphs for a town craving such heroics.

There was a third Wembley wonder day in 2012 to go with the two League Leaders’ Shield successes and three Grand Final appearances, none of which had been done before by The Wire in the Super League era.

However, the Grand Final win, the Holy Grail, the one everyone wants, remains elusive.

And that is despite having all the resources any head of coaching and rugby could wish for in a salary-capped sport, including an owner and board of directors willing to spend big bucks to help him deliver.

Smith came to Warrington believing he could bring that beautiful day for Warrington but has always stated: “There can never be any guarantees!”

He got Warrington so close, the nearest anyone has since Ces Mountford steered The Wire to a Championship double in the mid-1950s during his 10 years at the helm.

Smith and his charges deserved better against Wigan in the 2013 Old Trafford decider, when key injuries after being in control at 16-2 led to the Cherry and Whites sniffing blood and mercilessly cashing in.

And as with the Challenge Cup showdown with Hull at Wembley last year, two months later they held a lead against Wigan, again, at the Theatre of Dreams in Manchester only to come up narrowly short in the final reckoning.

Smith’s side, the one he had rebuilt since those almost halcyon days of Lee Briers, Adrian Morley and company from 2009 to 2013, were arguably two stretches of an arm from an unprecedented club treble last year.

For the team to have dropped from those heights and to be fighting for Super League survival within the space of 12 months left many in no doubt that the time is right for change for all concerned.

Everyone connected with The Wire is grateful for all that the 50-year-old has given and delivered – as a coach, mentor, colleague, friend or any combination of them all.

He has not always got everything right – he knows that better than anyone, and no coach does – but he will leave lots of memories, especially the historic Challenge Cup run and homecoming of 2009, and the breathtaking rugby of the club’s record-breaking 2011 season when for so long his side were untouchable.

Smith will not be out of the game for long, unless by his own choice, because there will be plenty of clubs who recognise the role he has played in helping to make Warrington a powerhouse in Super League, on and off the pitch regardless of the team’s table position saying otherwise at this time.

The club, run as a profitable business with its own stadium, top-notch training facilities, an improving youth set-up, a reserves team, a partner club and substantial supporter base, has the foundations to rise again under a fresh pair of eyes.

And Smith, as gracious a man as he is, will be the first to offer his congratulations when it does.

He has two matches left, against Featherstone Rovers and Hull KR, and he can bow out on a high.

Two more victories would match the club’s record winning sequence of 10 set in 2014, while his win-loss ratios would be the best in the club’s history just ahead of Mountford.