Grade E charge for Smith according to Pies forum.

By the way, anyone still disappointed that we lost Walters?

Maybe he would have kicked on given more opportunities, and he would certainly add a bit of size to our pack, but from what I've seen of him at Wigan he's regressed to his form of the Agar era. So much for being our best player of 2023, according to Jon Wilkin...

I note some Wigan fans want him to play prop in the coming game against Saints

He's not a second rower IMO, played all his best games for us as Prop - it was never the big loss that was made out to be, however I would have him back but not to play SR

Yes, I agree, it seemed that in the run to the 2022 GF he would make a decent prop, but I had the impression that he prefers SR and that may have been one of the reasons why he left? Aside from Smith not picking him at the start of 2023?

Clearly not kicked on as much as he would have hoped but would still liked to have retained him. He needs to bulk up. Far too slim for his height.

Attitude issues apparently.

He does seem to play with arrogant smirk, which seems to worsen when he makes a mistake.

I finally got around to watching the game. The defense was superb throughout, every player gave it everything. Although, there were still too many errors, especially in the first half. We can't afford to make as many mistakes against Warrington.

Would be great to have back to back good performances, even if we dont win vs wire

I watched it again last night. I'd echo Jack's points - defence much better than against Leigh, actually forcing errors through pressure (who'd have thought?), and the attack had a better structure.

On the downside, mistakes and our lack of size will still lose us games. Goudemand and TNW were ineffective off the bench. Maybe a bit unfair on TNW, but I struggle to see him as a SL player long term at his size. We also still go passive in defence occasionally, as there aren't enough players who are naturally aggressive in defence, and I don't think that will be fixed until we get new players in.

A downside/upside is what that game tells us about Cam Smith. The attack functioned perfectly well without a ball handling 13, which shouldn't surprise anyone as that's the way its been in the NRL forever. I'd imagine Arthur will want him back for his workrate and bulk, but he's awful as a playmaker and I'm not convinced he'll ever make a decent prop as he's not really big enough or dynamic enough for that. We'll see I suppose.

I may be alone in this, but I thought Sangare was surprisingly good in his first stint. I'm not saying he's a long term solution, but his sheer size at least forced the defence to put multiple players into the tackle, and he hit hard a couple of times in defence. But he just doesn't run in with enough aggression or speed, and I can't remember a player with that problem ever fixing it.

It is a test of Arthur's skills as a coach to get more out of those players. Powell did it at Cas with a number of players who seemed to be losing their way; just look at what Peters has done at HKR. Minchella was a journeyman, who is now an England international at a fraction of the size of some of those players.