In the audience was an influential mix of industry leaders, lobbyists and politicians, including then federal assistant infrastructure minister Jamie Briggs.

Baird was at the height of his powers: a political leader soaring in the polls about to embark on one of NSW's largest ever infrastructure programs as his government prepared for its second four-year term.

What had made it all possible was an audacious plan to take the partial privatisation of state-owned electricity businesses to an election and win, despite a massive union campaign feeding on the unpopularity of the move.

It was a feat no NSW leader before him had managed. Baird was keen to share with the room the secrets of his political success.

"Politicians and governments need to be prepared that, if you are going to undertake some of these decisions, expect a backlash," he told the audience.

"This is the message to every government – at the core, if you are actually fighting for what you believe in [and what] you know is right for the state, then you are fighting in the interests of the people you are there to serve."

"My sense is, you do the right thing in the long term, the politics will take care of itself".

If this moment – at which Baird, only in the job for just over a year, felt confident enough to lecture Australia's political leaders – was the zenith of his political career, then his stunning backdown this week on a bid to end greyhound racing in NSW was undoubtedly its nadir.

As he outlined repeatedly during his testing battle with industry and media over the past three months on the issue, he was doing what he believed was the right thing, on principle, on animal welfare grounds, regardless of the political backlash – just as he had outlined in that speech in 2015.

But facing the media on Tuesday to announce he would repeal legislation he determinedly drove through Parliament just six weeks earlier, Baird threw up his hands and issued an extraordinary mea culpa: "I was wrong."

With that, a politician whose popularity had him at one point in the realm of the gods crashed back to earth.

For one Liberal MP observing this week's dramatic events, it was a pivotal moment in Baird's leadership and the fortunes of the NSW Coalition government.

"Baird likes to tell the party room regularly that if you get the policy right, then the politics will take care of themselves," the MP told Fairfax Media. "But this time it hasn't worked."

"The government has had a big wake-up call that you have get both right if you're going to bring about change."

As it happens, there is one aspect of Baird's speech that was particularly on the money: as soon as he announced in July this year the contentious decision to end greyhound racing from mid-2017, the backlash was fierce.

Unveiling the report of a 13-month inquiry into the industry by former judge Michael McHugh, which found up to 68,000 greyhounds had been killed in the past 12 years for being too slow or unable to race, Baird and Deputy Premier and Nationals leader Troy Grant expressed their disgust.

Declaring the report's findings "chilling and horrific" they announced there was no alternative to closing the industry.

But sniffing the political wind, Opposition Leader Luke Foley quickly pledged the to oppose the ban and even reverse it if elected, delivering the industry an important political champion from the outset.

It wasn't long before the right-wing media swung into action, led by 2GB's Alan Jones and Ray Hadley, who proceeded to unleash their full fury on Baird with daily, often personal, attacks.

The pair was eagerly supported by News Corp titles The Daily Telegraph and The Australian, both of whom took firm editorial and reporting positions against the ban. (Fairfax Media supported the ban but not the way it was announced.)

Suddenly, on an issue for which it strongly felt it had the moral upper hand, the Baird government was facing an unprecedented media campaign. Any attempt to seriously discuss anything other than the future of the greyhound industry was literally shouted down.

That was bad enough. But an even more concerning problem lay within the Nationals, fuelled by the feared impact in regional areas, where the industry supported precious local jobs.

The task facing the government changed entirely when three Nationals MPs – Katrina Hodgkinson, Kevin Humphries and Chris Gulaptis – broke ranks to publicly oppose a ban their leader Troy Grant was supporting.

In late August, the three dissenting MPs crossed the floor to vote against the successful bill to close the industry from July 1 next year.

What had been a relatively standard fight with the Labor opposition had become a raging internal battle as well.

Adding to the pressure was the looming November 12 Orange byelection, which became a focal point for the anti-ban campaigners, including members of Grant's own party room. Although held by a fat margin of 21.7 per cent, speculation emerged that the Nationals were at risk of losing the seat in a greyhound-related protest vote – and such a loss would threaten Grant's leadership.

The consequence of the election of a new, anti-greyhound-ban Nationals leader would be the potential detonation of the Coalition itself. That, in turn, had serious consequences for Baird's leadership.

As is often the case, much of the speculation was difficult to ground in fact. For instance, it was reported that Nationals internal polling had the seat at 53-47 to the Nationals, representing a swing against them of 18 per cent.

In fact, Fairfax Media has confirmed the result of the poll, taken in early September, was 57-43 in favour of the Nationals. While this represented a 14 per cent swing against the Nationals, it suggests the seat was not in doubt.

It is also widely accepted that talk of Grant's leadership being under threat was overstated. But that did not cut through the noise of a furious campaign.

When the capitulation came, it was fast. Despite declaring on the Friday before he left for a week's holiday in late September that the July 1, 2017, industry closure date was "locked in", things changed within days. Perhaps influencing the timing was that Parliament was due to return on Tuesday for its final three weeks of sitting for the year.

On Monday afternoon, having returned from his holiday the day before, Baird met with John Keniry, the man he had appointed to guide the industry through its transition to closure. According to Baird, Keniry told him and Grant that his view, having engaged with the industry, was that there was now "a deep appetite for change".

Baird has since explained it was this briefing, along with the "community feedback", that led to the decision to back down. It also offered the pair at least some cover for a spectacular reversal.

They wasted no time. The same evening, former NSW premier Morris Iemma was approached to chair a new greyhound reform panel.

Later that evening, Baird headed off to what has been widely viewed as a peace-making dinner with Jones in his apartment in the "Toaster" building at East Circular Quay.

Once cabinet signed off on the back-down on Tuesday morning, Baird was soon fronting the media, helping himself to a large serving of humble pie.

So where did he go wrong? Opinion polls, including one commissioned by Fairfax Media, show a majority of NSW voters supported the industry ban, but this was not apparently enough for Baird to hold the line.

The main criticism, even from Baird's supporters, is that a decision to close an entire industry – particular for a Liberal government – should have been put out for significant public discussion.

Yet Baird and his cabinet made the announcement as a fait accompli. Why? One theory being put forward this week is that the election victory went to his head; that he was suffering from a Messiah complex.

Proponents of this theory point to not just the greyhound decision, but also issues such as council amalgamations, that have helped cement a narrative – fed by Jones and others – that the government has grown arrogant and unwilling to listen.

Certainly Baird and his government have taken a sharp dive in the opinion polls since the election. A Fairfax Media-commissioned ReachTel poll in August had the Coalition and Labor at 50-50 on a two-party preferred basis – a 4 percentage point shift compared with the 2015 election result.

The bigger shock for Baird was a preferred premier result which showed Foley outrating him 51-49 per cent.

Last month's Newspoll recorded a two-party preferred result of 51-49 in favour of the Coalition and Baird's performance figures slipped into negative territory for the first time.

The thousands of comments posted to Baird's Facebook account in response to his greyhound back-down announcement will give him no comfort that the reversal is the way to claw back that lost support.

"You're a disgrace," posted one angry constituent.

"How much does a soul go for these days, Mike Baird?" asked another.

Of the 6400 posts responding to Baird's explanation on Facebook, about two-thirds were overtly negative.

In response to the question "Do you respect Mike Baird for admitting that he made a mistake in banning greyhound racing?" 54 per cent of the 800-strong Sydney Morning Herald readers' panel responded they did not, 37 per cent said they did and 9 per cent didn't know.

The episode has also given the Foley opposition a much-needed shot in the arm. Accused of political opportunism and mocked as a "man of principle" by Baird for his opposition to the greyhound ban, the Opposition Leader has returned fire, with interest.

"The Premier said that he was a man of principle, a man of conviction," Foley declared after the reversal. "Where are Mr Baird's principles today? I'm calling out a search party for them. Who's the man of principle now?"

Among Baird's parliamentary colleagues, however, the sense of relief is palpable. "Delighted," one Liberal MP commented.

Most argue that Baird's mea culpa has ended the bloodletting and they can get on with the business of governing.

Another Liberal MP described Baird as "empowered", comparing the move favourably to former prime minister John Howard or former Queensland premier Peter Beattie, both acknowledged masters of the school of "I was wrong" politics.

Another praised how Baird executed his back-down but offered a warning: "He can't do it again. You can't come back for seconds."

For one MP, the episode marks the point at which Baird is expected to be a more consultative leader – with the public, his cabinet and his party.

"This is the end of Mike Baird, Mark 1 but the start of Mike Baird, Mark 2," the MP suggested. "It's the making of the man."

During his Tuesday media conference, Baird repeated that the government has listened almost as many times as he admitted he was wrong.

The people of NSW should expect to hear this repeated more than a few times in the 2½ years before the next election in March 2019.