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.

I'm sure some posters here are gutted that we came away with a win.... Despite all out injuries to the squad, and the illness we recently had, we are currently top of the table.

For me it's the lack of options. In addition to the below there is a lack of runners, poor offloads, basic passing mistakes and bad decision making (which to be fair was Gregson a few times last night but he doesn't have the experience to know when a move is on and when to come inside).

Plan A; inside pass that's worked once maybe twice this season yet we try it 15 times a game.
Plan B; swing it out to the edges and hope the defence makes a read error. Our passing accuracy, passing speed and inability to draw the defender kills this move every time.

I hope we develop more to our game than these two plays when we get Sam, Williams and Lockers back. Until then I guess we just have to put up with it. Doesn't help that Sutton is absolutely not a pivot at 13, he's not a ball player at all, I've no idea why Wane keeps persisting with that.

I've heard from a rumour we've enquired about Albert Kelly from someone within the club.
I treated it as mere gossip, but he felt Kelly was someone we're interested in for next season.

Interesting. He's been ok with the ball when I've seen him but terrible defence and injured half of the time?

In fairness I haven't seen another of him to judge. Don't know if he'd make a good signing or not. I can recognise his strengths as a player, but not seen enough of him to make an educated comment.

Spot on. The idea that somehow Smith is under strict orders from Wane is daft and doesn't make any sense. Look at Gelling; I'm sure what we does doesn't always please SW, but he still gets a game every week! And rightly so, he was great again last night, with the good vastly outweighing the bad.

I was a 6' 2", 14 stone, quick Centre, i would imagine having Gelling coming at you would be a bloody nightmare...

Heh! He is a big lad when you see him close up, isn't he?

Yep, and i don't regard myself as "Small"...

Id probably look at a place on the bench for Tomkins at Dewsbury just to ease him back in for 20 mins towards the back end as long as he's 100% ready.

I agree about Wire as well. There's potentially 6 players to come back but to throw all of them in would seem too risky. I'd probably look to hold Williams back and only play one of Farrell or Joel Tomkins (whoever is closest to 100%). I'm guessing Tautai is going to be missing also.

That would leave us looking something like-

Sarginson
Manfredi Gelling Gildart Charnley
Lockers Smith
Flower Powell Mossop
Tomkins Isa Bateman

Clubb Crosby Sutton Gregson

That's certainly as strong as we've been since Good Friday.

We would be better of with Albert Steptoe. One for the teenagers to google.

That would be an interesting replacement.

From a guy to misses a lot of tackles to a guy who doesn't tackle at all.

Hmmm ...