I thought he was woeful in defense against Cas but he wasn't on his own with ST, Charnley and Hughes all shirt grabbing and making a meal of Webster and Carney. Last night he was a lot better and his kicking game is a real asset to us, I just hope Blake Green compliments him a bit more with a running game and taking the line on more, his pass to Thornley could have been better when we were attacking in the 2nd half, but in contrast maybe Thornley's positioning wasn't the best. Personally i think the jury is still out on Green IMO. It's got to be about the 17 taking the field complimenting each other and I don't want two half backs that are similar in style. All in all i thought our performance was good and with a bit more field position we could have caused them a few more problems, basically we put ourselves under pressure more than Leeds did, i accept they bombed a few chances but so did we. With a few forwards back from injury and ST fit we will go okay, more confident now than i was at the start of the season.

I'm yet to be convinced by Smith also.

Often picks the wrong option and is caught out in certain attacking situations and his defence isn't great. His kicking game is a good attribute though.

I'm strugglng to see the debate here I'm afraid. We are talking about Matty Smith - how good does anyone expect him to be? He's been average throughout his career, what going to change now?

Smith has a good kicking game and he can be useful when running the ball, but he doesn't really run with the ball that often.

His defence hasn't looked great so far which is something he really has to work on and his decision making hasn't always been great.

I'd say so far he's been average.

At the moment we also have another player who has a good kicking game, who can read the game well but also has excellent defence and that's Sam Powell.

I'd like to see Powell given a chance to play at scrum half rather than coming off the bench and playing hooker. Smith would arguably add more to the hooking role and we'd get to see what Powell can do in his best position.

Said the same on Friday at the game.

Against Widnes I'd put Powell at 7 and use Smith at 9 to spell McIlorum just to have a lool at things.

I like Smith at 9 when I see him there.

Don't you think a lot of how Smith played with ball in hand had to do with how quick Leeds' line speed was though? That's been a massive plus for us this year and every team we have played has struggled to create everything. Even Huddersfield last week couldn't break us down until the last 5 mins. They scored their first 4 tries off of long kicks.

Obviously I don't see Smith every week so I don't know his form leading into the game, but I don't think any 7 would have been able to do much Friday.