To everyone's surprise, including my own, he was deservedly given Man of the Match in the deciding game against NZ today.

He was more effective than George Williams was in his games and has even outshone Widdop who has had a poor series in my opinion.

Can we now assume Smith is the best English halfback in Super League?

He had a great game

No.

Based on his performances in SL, no. He was solid, and provided some much needed control, and shape, but lets not go overboard here, he was the best English half in the series, but mainly because the other 2 were pretty rubbish.

Organizing, and a half decent kicking game should be every halfbacks bread, and butter. Unfortunately, England don't seem to be able to produce many halves with those key attributes, hence the reason why Smith's performance today has been praised so highly. It can't just be because they don't play in the NRL either, because Widdop seems to lack all the qualities you would associate with a world class halfback. He is a tremendous defender to be fair to him.

Based on the Grand Final, and probably the final two months of SL, Smith is not a patch on McGuire

Not as good as McGuire. I didnt think Widdop was that bad.

Not by a country mile, credit to smith he played the conditions really well. Top marks also to the rest of the Wigan boys. I thought they all had stand out games.
Can't quite fathom out at the moment we're we are in stature with Australia, certainly we have some promising players in the squad. Obviously we need to kick on from this success ,
Not certain if the present coaching team is up to the job, although after winning the series they will probably be awarded new contracts.

I was surprised how well Smith played & he defended well too. Whether Gale would have been able to do as well we'll never know.

The conditions yesterday suited his game perfectly. Very limited in attack, but with a decent kicking game.

Took the ball right up to the line, played the conditions well, kicked relatively well, took charge of organising and did everything with a calm, controlled air of comfort. Basically everything Williams failed to do last week.

I thought that Matty Smith had a very good game yesterday, he certainly brought the controlled direction to our side that we have sadly lacked in the first two tests

I'm not sure how yesterdays performance from Matty Smith warrants him as SL's best half back though, unless your opinions are based on one game rather than the whole season?

He kicked good yesterday, but they were helped by the dithering that RTS did when collection them.

Good to see Hardaker has the kick off duties too at International level. We got a drop out straight away from the start of the game thanks to one NZ couldn't deal with and they struggled with others too.

I agree. Smith has had a mixed season, but yesterday he did the job his coach and team needed. We commented at the game that it was very much a "Sinfield" type performance. That's a good accolade btw.

With regards to it being a Sinfield type performance Rogues
Matty Smith certainly played the game and what was in front of him yesterday and that performance from him certainly helped us win the game and the series

Has there ever been a better game management player than Sinfield?
IMO he is the best of all time in controlling a game and making sure that his side wins the big games when they count

I've always rated Sinfield for his game management. If you look back at my posts over the years I said that for England /GB his most effective position was at #9, where he could control a game without having to be a running halfback. The problem with a lot of many RL fans is that see a Rangi Chase type player as a solution rather than a problem.