Leigh (A)

Quote: jonh "I’m back in the Bevan’s not a 6 camp after last night. I literally jump from he is/isn’t on an almost weekly basis.

If you contain his running threat then you pretty much nullify him and I do worry that in the big tight games he lacks the craft and plan b to get us over the line.

I do think he will get there as a 6 but I do worry he hasn’t enough game time there and experience there to get us over the line this year.

As for the try no try thing I felt both were tries, or if the ref was consistent no tries.

Lots of positives, outside backs again fantastic, I think Wardle has been second fiddle to King for most of the year but he has really kicked on at the right time of year (not that he has been poor the rest of it either he’s just gone up another level).

KPP looks determined to go out a winner, Faz just so consistent and Hill went well and will get a lot from that kind of play off intensity game.

Smithies though for me is the highlight love watching him play, a genuine hardened pro already even at his age.

As an exercise I think it was a positive. We can’t expect to blow teams away every week at this stage of the year and that sets us up nicely for what is to come.'"

I said a week or so ago that one of my concerns about us being capable of winning the GF is the ability of French at 6. Smith quite rightly dictates how we play but he dominates it so much that French for the majority of minutes becomes almost anonymous and when he does get the ball he is quickly closed down. I think French kicked the ball once maybe twice last night? Peet and his team need to come up with plays that get French more involved and with more space which is easier said then done with an inexperienced 6.
On reflection the result and the performance is what I expected last night. Leyth are no mugs and they put in a lot of effort and made at times lots of metres which was a bit concerning. I wasn’t particularly worried in the final 20 minutes or so primarily because our defence, as usual, was well organised and Smith did some good kicks to relieve the pressure. Obviously we need to raise our game even higher and I’m hoping that Havard might be available to enable us keep up the intensity when Ellis and Dupree are not on the pitch. Hopefully Peet and the coaching staff can work on improvements over the next couple of weeks to lift us to the next level.