Definitely a split down the middle here.
As has been said Mal,is a tackling machine who bottles up the middle of the field defensively.His never-say-die-attitude rubs off on the others and we appear more solid when he is on the pitch.However,the hookers role in the modern game is more of a third halfback now and this is where Mal falls down,with his erratic and slow passing from the PTB.
If the clubs idea is to sign a decent hooker from another club,then yes they are right not to offer him another playing contract.But if the idea is to play either Matty Smith or Jeremy Smith as hooker next season then we are asking for trouble as both miss far too many tackles and we would be better overall with Mal.
If Mal wants to carry on playing then i would advise him to carry on,as you are a long time retired and he won't be short of offers from Championship clubs.
Finally,as someone who has watched Salford for well over 40years,watched Watkins,Hesketh,Gill,Dixon,etc,I have never seen anyone put in more effort in playing for Salford.Mal maybe hasn't been the most skilful player we have ever had,but my god! nobody has tried harder.
Whatever Mal decides to do I wish him well for the future and i'd like to thank him for the effort he has put in over the years.

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You could argue his presence in the team in recent years has hindered the teams performance as certain players look at mal and think " he'll tackle him so i dont have to" Sometimes he gets invoved in tackles he doesnt reaily need to because of other peoples "lazy play" he has too, and his hunger to get stuck into the next tackle regardless who he is tackling and where he is on the field sometimes causes gaps in our defence as the rest of the defensive line has to reajust and cant quick enough to stop the danger.



Smiths Defence is very good, its not Alker esc but i dont see him as a weak point in the line, we have a couple of turnstiles and we all know who they are but i wouldnt put Smith in that category. Having the two smiths at Hooker next season would certainly give us a good attacking base to build from, the quicker we get the ball wide to The Wizard and the scrum half the the more damage we can cause an opponent.

Really? I think its pretty poor if I'm being honest! Both Smiths that is.

Both Smiths are lacking in the tackling department if you compare them to Alker. You'd be hard pushed to find a current SL hooker who can work like he does in defence.

However it's time we have a much more attacking bit of flare from our hookers and as Booby has said make the rest of the team man up defensively instead of letting Alker do all the work. I think both smiths have the potential to do that.

I wouldn't compare anyone defensively to Alker as that would be unfair. I just think they're both lacking lacking in defence compared to you average super league player. IMO its time for J. Smith to move on not making him a scapegoat far from it, but he's not really done anything since he's been here. As for Matty Smith I'm still a little unsure he's had a couple of good games, but has had some stinkers as well. Maybe trying to sign him on a long term deal and letting him and Holdsworth get even more of an understanding would be beneficial to the team as there's no doubting that when they do click they have the makings of a very good halfback combination.

We need a specialist hooker if Alker isn't going to be playing next year. I don't think that by keeping J.Smith and playing him at 9 it will improve the team. We need to bring in a bit of quality in that department if we want to push on as a team.