Blythe had an excellent start to his career at Wire and really looked promising in 2008, but he seems to have gone down the long path of many a wayward Wire youngster and his off filed activities have somewhat made him lose focus. A year deal is enough for him to prove that he has the ability to do well.

I see Blythe as more of a centre personally, McCarthy is the inform player in the reserves and plays loose forward along with Rhys Williams(Ithink thats his surname). Surely McCarthyhe must be knocking on the door.

I like Blythe and I think he has all the attributes to make it, he just seems to be struggling to be making the step up from reserve grade to senior level. I think giving him another year is about right, he needs to size up a bit for me, a lot of the bigger forwards get the better of him.

I'm just wondering what Smith's going to do with him, if you looked at Leeds under Smith, they had Ellis and JJB at second row, two grafters who had deceptive amounts of skill to their game. When Blythe came in last year he seemed to have the skill, but maybe not the graft, I think Smith's looking for the work rate over the skill at the moment, so maybe that's why Matty's struggled a little, because we haven't played to his strength's as much as we did last year with our more disciplined approach under Smith.

It could be that, or maybe he just looked good when playing alongside the other youngsters, but when compared to the senior players he isn't quite as good as we all thought. Hopefully it's the first and he goes on to be a top player.

As everyone says - sensible decision.

I'd like to see Grix play as a play making loose forward (a la Kevin Sinfield for Leeds).

probably due to finishing off his studies this year at University.

I agree with Blythe being given a go at centre. I think his footwork is more suited to centre. Not that good footwork is not needed in the pack but he does look light on his feet which would be of more benefit at centre. Maybe this spell in the back row will toughen him up and get him used to the speed of SL. My main problem is the lack of british centres as they have all been drafted into the pack and Aussie centres brought in across SL.
When was the last time Warrington had any local lads in the centres for any length of time. Cullen, Duane, Thorniley?