I think the train on squad is a good idea. It's all very well picking 13 of who are considered the best english players and claim its a team. its very different in practice. It's far better to pick 13 players who can play to the coach's system and play as part of a team. too often in the past we've had 13 individuals on the field and they've had their collective backsides handed to them. noble was accused of similar bias, however he saw the bradford players every day, knew what they were capabile of and that they would play well to his system.

smith is doing nothing different to that or what all successful managers do
ie pick players to fit a system, not fiddle with a system to try and accomodate players

At the end of the day, does it really matter what Smith does?


You don't have the cattle.

Harrison has impressed me but for me, Bridge probably doesn't deserve to be there. Average personified.

I don't understand why people are questioning Tony Smith's credentials when he has delivered at all three clubs he has coached at over here. Add into that the fact that all three were big underachievers and that's an even bigger feather in his cap. Right now he is the right man for the job given that we can't attract Wayne Bennett or someone similar.

I think it shows the compleate lack of centres we have in this country at the moment, to be fair though, Bridge has been excellent since big time charlie left for Wigan. I know people on here don't belive it what the stats say but Bridge's stats at centre are quite decent, 15 clean breaks, 12 try assists, 8 tries, 65 tackle busts, and nearly 1600 metres made.

In which case why no call-up for Kirk Yeaman of Hull who has done marginally better in the majority of those stats despite playing less games?

Yeah and Bridge has only played around 15-16 of his 20 odd games this season at centre.

So basically, why bother discussing the pro’s / cons of having a club coach being in charged of the national side, because, the Aussies will destroy us

.




Serious question, do Warrington fans really believe that if Smith wasn’t their coach they would still have the same number of players in the squad?

So as a stand-off, you'd expect him to be more creative in attack and also make more metres as he's part of the attacking process more?

Remind me again how many times he's played stand off this season?

8 of his 23 appearances have been at stand-off.

Well there you go then, he aint a stand off.