I do not think eastmond would work with smith as eastmond would want to be the centre of attention.

Sadly some people just cant grasp the fact that we cant keep everybody. Matty Smith is a good player but as we can only play 2 halfbacks and we have Leon Pryce as a cert thats leaves 1 spot. The club and coaching staff obviously believe Eastmond is a brighter propect and it's in the best long term interest of the club and the player that Smith move on and get the first team Rugby he needs and we can develop more young players with the extra cap money/squad space (players like Ellis and Gaskell)

Matty had a top game for us and personally with Pryce out and Kyle unlikey to be 100% fit I hope he keeps his spot in the team and picks up a grand final winners medal but all the people bleating about keeping him should just take a breath, look at the squad and answer the following easy question , If we were injury free with the squad we have would Matty Smith be in the 17 ? In my opinion the answer is no and by the fact that he was loaned out all year I guess Mick Potter would agree.

I think thats nonsense. I'm not sure they would be the best combo but if Eastmond is fit then a I would expect Eastmond to pick up the Leon Pryce type of role and play as a 6 and Smith to play 7 for the rest of the playoffs.

Where does this come from that he was somehow treated shoddily by Saints?

He understandably wanted more 1st team experience, we felt we couldn't offer him that because he was behind better players in the pecking order.

That's sport, and the simple fact is that he wouldn't have been considered had our halves and back-up halves not been decimated.

That's not to detract from Matty, all credit to him for the professional way he answered the Saints' call, he was superb last night and let nobody down. He's given Potter a selection problem if Eastmond and/or Lomax are fit in a fortnight.

I think you need to get off your high horse.

People are perfectly aware we can't keep everybody. The point people are making - on the whole - about Smith is that he provided us last night with two things we struggle to have: a real kicking game and good organisation. Our backs were caught out a couple of times by his kicks, not because they weren't good kicks but because our backs weren't used to responding to that kind of a final play. Wello was alert to the possibilities which is why he was the one to get to that first grubber and had it not been raining he might well have taken it in. But there were other occasions when, had our backs been used to a good kicking game, we might have scored had we been more alert to those sorts of possibilities. It was a joy to watch us actually being able to put the other team on the back foot by some seriously good kicking: tactical kicking, kicking that shows independence of thought.

On top of that, of course, most Saints fans thought we would struggle to win last night because we were without our halfbacks so to watch someone do what Matty did under those circumstances was simply fantastic.

Saints didn't contact him while he was at Salford. He was interviewed in the press and he was still waiting to hear from Saints. This was just before he signed with Salford. And now Saints contact him when, as Mick Potter so delightfully put it, we had no-one else. I think it's shoddy to send a guy out on loan and then not talk to him about his future when his contract is coming to an end, especially a guy who has made it consistently clear he wants to play for the club. And I'm not the only fan to think that.

Agree with a lot of the post, but this is highly unfair.

Eastmond has a great kicking game.

His contract ends at the end of the season. Contract negotiations are often carried out late in the season. It's a non story.

The problem always lay in the fact that he wanted to play for the club, but he would have had to have settled for a bit part position given the talent that already sits at half back.

I agree, Eastmonds kicking game this has been pretty good but matty smith has a much better short kicking game and also likes the odd 40-20

Just think. How many times have you seen Kyle kick mid field? How many 40/20s has he attempted? He has kicked some lovely kicks across the tryline and has kicked goals but he hasn't got the tactical and creative kicking of Smith. Maybe he will develop that side of his game over time but to do so he will have to start thinking outside the box a bit more. Smith is a natural tactical kicker and that was present in his game when he was last with us. It was a real treat having a kicker like Smith in a red vee. Or it was for me, anyway!

His kicking on friday was top class.

He has to play in all our games this year IMO.