To be honest I don't think Matty Smith has improved all that much since we let him go, bit more experience and composure perhaps but still not creative and dominant to orchestrate a team consistently. Every season the standard of Superleague weakens as the quality of players available suffers, Matty is OK in a structured side like Wigan but Saints wanted created creative open play half backs which we never got for the remaining 6 years courtesy of Eastmond. A fit Walsh is much superior than Matty Smith, internationally we have struggled so long for half backs similar to Saints, George Williams looks very promising and should develop into a much better player than Matty.

Matty Smith is a meat and veg player. Does the basic well enough at a consistent level but has no flair or spark.

I think this idea - that a steady, organising half back is for boring, structured play and an instinctive, pacey half is for creative open play - is a common misconception. Players need space, time and possession in good positions in order to really improvise. A really good organiser at half back provides all of these things. He himself might not be producing crazy youtube moments, but he's creating the conditions for other players to do that. Matty Smith's directness on Saturday meant that we got much better quality ball out to people like Watkins than we had in the previous two tests. Conversely, the improvisational running of Widdop and Williams meant that when the ball got to the edges it was always a blind alley. I agree that Williams will ultimately become a better player than Matty Smith, but I think a player like Williams needs a player like Smith alongside him. It would be great if we had a more talented version of Smith to call upon (look at Cooper Cronk, for example - he is first and foremost an organising half, and the Aussies always have one in their side), but with the exception of McGuire, who now seems to be out of the picture, we don't.

EDIT: By 'we', of course, I mean England, not Saints.

The Grand Final that Matty Smith played in, is this the same one where he'd spent the entire season on loan to Salford and got called back to play in that one game (my memory might be betraying me)? If so, who expects a player to just come back in for a game after spending the season elsewhere and just slip back into the structures etc It's essentially like signing for a new team...
And again, if I remember right, despite losing that game he played well.

I said it at the time and I'll say it now, Eastmond, just like Lomax wasn't at his most effective as a scrum half. He was an explosive runner, who was exciting to watch, but he wasn't the type of player who could guide the team around the pitch and come up with intelligent plays on the last tackle. In my opinion, he was a fullback thrown in to the scrum half role in a desperate attempt to recapture the Sean Long glory days.

Eastmond was playing for us when he was around 20. He had a far more complete set of half backs skills than Sean Long did at that age.
Just because someone is fast, doesn't mean they can't do the organising role, its jut player that have it all are obviously a rarer commodity.
Lomax won YPOTY playing 7. He did have a limitations, but could work well with a thinker/orgnaisor/kicker (like smith) alongside him. When we started picking Hohaia at 6 was when his deficiencies at 7 became too much (a long with a lot of other things not going well), but again, he was very young to be expected to be a complete halfback.

As I've said, I like Smith, I wished we'd have kept him instead of giving that doorhandle Moore another chance, but I don't think Smith was the guy to turn us from bridesmaids to brides

I'm think Kevin Brown struggles against the better teams and not good enough for international rugby

Nobody agrees with anything I say, it's like my marriage this!!!!!!

*goes and sulks in shed*

I agree with you, he would flourish with better quality players either side, or rather they would.

It's not your fault. Your just misunderstood

Just watched a review of the 2015 season and the player that stands out head and shoulders above every other half back is Kevin Brown. Sheer class. Without him, Widnes would be scrapping with Bradford and Leigh in 2016.

Only just seen this thread, and interesting to compare it to the one on the Wigan board! If anything, the sentiment here seems slightly more pro-Smith, I'd say.

He had a poor start to the season for us (and wasn't the only one by any means). He did steadily improve as the season went on, culminating in that good England performance discussed above. I do think that he and George Williams are a good fit together, and I agree that this is the kind of partnership England should be looking for too, if not with the same personnel necessarily. He'll never set the world on fire, but he's a good solid pro who comes across as a decent bloke as well.

I agree with youse guys about Widdop too. I went from being delighted that England have a highly-rated NRL half in the team, to being perturbed by his sideways crabbing and lack of direction. Good goal-kicker, though (and better than Smith). In the apt words of a Wigan board poster (discussing Stefan Ratchford, IIRC), he seems more sizzle than steak!

Also agree that Brown and Gale can consider themselves a tad unlucky not to have been given a shot at an England shirt in the last year, but the real culprit there is the chronic lack of international footy, a situation for which the ARL/NRL must take most of the blame.