i agree with Wanes comments; smith is suffering at the hands of the teams' performances and once the team gets into the swing of things there will be less pressure on smith and that will show in his kicking accuracy.

a side struggling puts added pressure on the conversion kicker to achieve the conversion to keep his team in the match, a side in good form provides the conversion kicker with breathing space to settle in and come good, which I believe (and more importantly hope!) he will do.

lets not forget we are 3 games in guys.

Wane is talking rubbish, Smith is only a 50-60 percent strike rate kicker where Pat was a 85-90 percent kicker

A lot of our tries are scored out wide (thos should continue due to the good form of Burgess and with Charnley ready to hit the straps). Tough days ahead for Smith.

Bowen has been known to pop a few over according to his records!

Yet, give the lad a chance.

Quote MR FRISK="MR FRISK"Wane is talking rubbish, Smith is only a 50-60 percent strike rate kicker where =#FF0000Pat was a 85-90 percent kicker :READING:'" No he wasn't. www.superleague.co.uk/stats/player_stats

Quote MR FRISK="MR FRISK"Wane is talking rubbish, Smith is only a 50-60 percent strike rate kicker where =#FF0000Pat was a 85-90 percent kicker :READING:'" No he wasn't. www.superleague.co.uk/stats/player_stats

There isn't a kicker alive who kicks 90%. Call me a boring statto but even in his best season Richards's only kicked 84%, his average was 78%. Just to put that into context, the most tries we scored against any of the big teams last year was 5. The stats say Richards would kick 4 of them and Smith would kick 2 or 3. So we're only really talking about a difference of 2-4 points when it matters between the two of them, even if Smith stays at around 50%. Believe it or not only 3 of the 12 games we played against the top 5 last year came down to 4 points or less, and none of them were knockout games.

I'd say we've plenty room to give him time, particularly as we know Charnley isn't a good kicker either and didn't really improve with far more in-game attempts than Smith had. If we get to the end of May and he's still only kicking half of them maybe we should look at Hampshire kicking, even if it's just when he comes off the bench. I'd hate for us to bring in someone like Foster who will get those extra 2-4 points but easily lose us more than that through bombed tries and defensive foul-ups.

How about Owen Farrell as his dats as England fly half will be limited with the emergence of George Ford.

I can't tell if you're joking or not.

You are ignoring how missed kicks can change the dynamics of the game. We scored two good tries v HKR but were only 8 points to the good for it. I think we looked pretty deflated as a team when Smith missed the second kick which was an easy kick. One attack off them and it was 8-6. It also gives the other side hope which I also think occurred v HKR and so whatever the stats from last season say I don't think you can conclude those 2-4 dropped points can be dismissed and we would still have won any of those games from last season.



I thought when we brought in average players it wasn't a problem as once Wane and Bitcon got hold of them they would improve. That is the usual excuse if we sign average players

matty smith is more than capable, just needs to learn composure you could tell he was going to miss the kicks he did as it looked like he was over thinking it.

I can tell you it didn't do anything to improve my humour watching Pat hoof over kicks from every bloody conceivable angle at the week end (to add to two smartly taken tries and a 70 yard drop out)!!!

that drop out was something else its good to see that a 32 year old who spent majority in super league can still "cut it in the NRL". But yeah i would rather see him in a wigan shirt every weekend as well. super player who is a Wigan legend, good to see him spreading the joining jack over there as well.