Had Smith missed a couple last night and we'd have lost by 2 points, there would probably been a 7 pages thread slamming him.

Perfect tonight and a high pressure kick at the end, keep it up Matty!

Agreed, I've been a big critic of Smith but he really pulled it out of the bag there, well done Matty, keep it up!

Very true, the pressure on Matty in those final seconds must have been enormous and if he hadn't got those 2 points at the end no doubt he would have been slagged off but it's a sad fact of life that most folk are quicker to criticise than praise. Same goes for Matty Bowen - if he's dropped the ball or knocked on he would have been Wigan's worse buy in the last thousand years but he has a great game an the poor guy doesn't get a mention. Well done everyone last night, you gave us a few scary moments but there was a lot of effort last night as well

i'll just say one word......consistency

So we've found that Matty kicked last season at 70% and so far this season at 70% as well. That's pretty consistent.

Are you saying that is good or bad?

Well, it's not good, is it? 70% is easily the worst of the better SL teams' goal-kickers' percentage (or indeed the NRL).

Of course I was pleased to see Matty make his kicks, and I've been more of a supporter of him (his general play, anyway) than many on here. But if it wasn't clear last season, it is now: despite, I'm sure, plenty of practice, Matty Smith will never be a top-class goal-kicker. So we either suck that down, or find another kicker.

plus Dureau, Gale and Griffin. Craig Hall is better too but not by much.

For anyone who is interested:

Excellent (80%+)
Sinfield 86%
Dureau 83%

Good (75-79%)
Gale 77%
Brough 76%
Griffin 75%

Bad (70-75%)
Hall 73%
Smith 70%

Terrible (<70%)
Mantellato 68%
Sneyd 68%
Burns 68%
Rathford 66%
Owens 65%

I was actually thinking about last season's stats, which I recall checking quite carefully. Smith has been much the same; I hadn't checked how the likes of Sneyd were kicking this year.

stats tell you nothing as Wigans tries are mostly scored way out on the wings that's how Wigan play if the stats were broken down as to where the kicks where taken would give different readings.

73% is the average for the league (or was when I worked it out on Friday) if you're saying 2% better than that is good (Griffin, 75%) then surely 3% worse than that is bad (Smith, 70%).

This is something I always mention about goal kicking. Percentages are a bit mis-leading as they don't tell you how many kicks were of a difficult degree.

Mantellto at HKR I think is a good kicker but when he played at Headingley he missed all 4 of his first half attempts, yet tbf all 4 were from the touch line.

On Thursday both Smith and Sinfield converted all 4 of their teams tries yet 3 of them were straight forward gimmes really with both producing a great one from the wing.

Fact of the matter is, we've been incredibly spoiled in terms of goal kicking, well I certainly have in my lifetime anyway. I've only ever seen Botica, Faz, Tickle, Richards kicking goals for Wigan, so I suppose a gifted kicker is something I... and judging by opinion on Smith, many others have just taken for granted. We expect it, and all of a sudden, we have what most teams have always had, which is average and we don't like it. Something I imagine we're going to have to get used to... not that, that makes it any less infuriating.

Damn that missing "Like" button....