I fully agree. We're a good side but swap the scrum halfs round tonight and we'd be a better side. What I mean is we can hide him in a full strength team but we shouldn't need to do that.

If I went though every side in superleague currently there's only 2 or 3 who I wouldn't swap scrum halfs with.

+1

Give me a tough win in an ordinary performance when we're shy of 8 players again over an entertaining loss any day of the week.

I went on a bit of a rant at the ground when Sarginson scored praising the sheer desire to win these players have shown all season. We've been decimated and still are but the attitude has been spot on yet I come on here and read the side being bagged week in week out by a section of supporters.

I'm not throwing this at you solely by the way but I wonder sometimes if people are looking at the personnel missing when they complain that we're not exactly an entertainment machine at the minute.

I predicted a tough game and we got it. Two points wrapped up, another 7 full days to get a few of our walking wounded back. Lockers & Manfredi are due back I believe. We should be more confident going to the HJ that when they came to the DW.

Wane has said post match there's a chance Manfredi, Williams, Lockers, Joel Tomkins, Crosby and Farrell will all be back.

Even more pleasing is that he expects Sam Tomkins to feature the following week against Dewsbury.

We scraped a win against the bottom of the league side who also have a number of players missing. We bombed a few overlaps due to our lack of basic ability to pass a ball. We had field position and enough possession to dominate that game from start to finish.

With the team we had available, a 4-try win against a side that recently beat and nilled our closest challengers? I'll take that anytime.

I am glad we won and the 2nd half was exciting but what Hudds did to Wire is irrelevant when discussing the game tonight. It has nothing to do with some obvious issues we have. Yes we are missing a number of players but our attack didn't look any good before Williams and MM got injured. We were just as useless in the first half v Leeds with a far better team out also only scoring six despite being camped in their 20. It's a recurring theme.

Brough is so much better than Smith its sticks out like a sore thumb. The only mitigating factor I can think of for Smith is Wane is restricting what he does insisting on a regimented plan of attack. If so Smith needs or grow a pair and act as a senior player ought to. Maybe that is what happened in the last 15 minutes. If so he needs to do it more often instead of flogging the dead horse that our attack amounts to.

In fairness to Smith he's played most of the season as the only first choice key pivot out of five (1,6,7,9 and 13) playing in his actual position and is pretty much having to do everything on his own when he isn't that type of player.

He pretty much plays what I call the "Deacon role" when everyone is fit.

Despite all this we're top of the league having not played well in attack almost all of the season so far, and expect to get everyone except McIlourm back next week or for the cup game.

Pleasing to hear that most are close to full fitness, not sure I would risk them all against Wire.

Similarly I wouldn't rush Sam back for the Dewsbury away game. No disrespect to them but we should have more than enough without him.
He deserves a big welcome back in front of the home crowd, possibly the Hull FC game? Might get a few extra bums on seats for that, our attendances recently have been startling!

I wouldn't rush them all back either, they aren't likely to be match fit and could leave us flagging toward the end of the match but as to Sam I was under the impression he was going to ready by then not rushed back for the Dewsbury game. I think it would be ideal to give him 40 mins if so.

Maybe he did in the last 15 mins what he should have been doing all season but very rarely has?
It's as plausible if not more so than he's a great scrum half who's being stifled by a coach for God knows what reason.

I am not suggesting he is a great scrum half. I was offering a possible explanation as to why he seems to play like a robot.

We obviously play a very structured form of attack. That is down to Wane. If Smith was a great scrum half he'd be breaking out of the mould more often when it doesn't work. If that is what he should have been doing all season as far as Wane is concerned and he hasn't, then I am not sure why Wane thinks the sun shines out of his bum as he clearly does.

+1
With 4 or 5 key players missing since Round 2/3 and an average 7/8 first 17players out for the past 5/6 weeks we could have been looking at a run of results similar to leeds/saints/hudds/hkr but instead we've won 8 from 11
Been on my mind this for a while because I knew we had 9poi.t-shirt last season after 9 games,we were 10 points after 5 this year.
I had a look at John monies four years at the club, and only in his last season did we get to 8wins quicker,the other 3 took 12/13/14.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be!

That's as good as anything since Maguire first season and I don't remember in the 5 intervening years having to go through as sticky a spell especially to key players with injuries.

I'm disappointed in smith a lot of the time for not doing some basic stuff however I cant fault the commitment and effort shown by any of the players so far this season.
It's been a joy to watch manfredi, Bateman, gelling,and sarginson since his move to full back.
Great to see Josh back to something like his best, TT performing well (i would have shown him the door after this year's Leigh friendly, how wrong was that,antimony worried about admitting it)and Mossop finding some form last couple of games,
Add to that in over the.moon with Sam Powell and young gregson has really impressed me.with how tough he plays, a few errors but that's understandable for me given the circumstances (could he fill in at 9 if needed).

He doesn't play like a robot, I'd be happier if he did! Robots very rarely have the inconsistencies that Smith does, they generally perform to a high standard quite often.

I was more interested at your inference that he did well in that 15minspell because he may have ignored wanes game plan etc. With no evidence to support that assertion.
It's equally if not more plausible that he actually started to do what wane wants him to do for 80 mins every week but doesn't.

If anyone seriously thinks that Wane is anywhere near 100% happy with Smith's performances they'd be wrong, I'm pretty sure Matty Smith knows that (in fact I know he knows,and he agrees himself).
Solving it is a different matter and immeasurably more difficult given the injury situation we find ourselves in this season.

Every player is given structures to play to and a certain amount of live.certainly to.play what's in front of them at times.
Top line is mattys not doing enough of either at this present time and more infuriatingly is not doing some of the basics and simple.game.management that he should be.
Most of that is down to himself.