I agree with what you say and it only emphasises what I have said in the past, Smith plays to his limitations , he is almost like an extra acting halfback. Just move the ball on as quick as possible to the right, his tie up with his standoff is non existent, Green when he was here he could sort things out for himself. I think it is asking a lot of Williams to be the only creative player in the middle.
When I saw the state of the pitch last night I thought it was crying out for a performance off Smith like he gave at Wembley a couple of years ago when he got the Lance Todd Trophy, but he just did not deliver.

Smith and Williams were both poor in the game, they struggled with the kicking game throughout and Smith lost the battle of wits against Hunt in extra time.

During the game they both threw poor passes that at times were uncatchable because of the weight behind the ball. There were also a number of poor decisions, hitting the lead when it should have gone out the back and vice versa.

You missed the impact of Tautai in the 2nd half

Smith was very quiet throughout the game. I thought that Williams ran with the ball well but that's about it. Gelling was the best Wigan player on the pitch for me.

Tautai looked the part for me last night. I presume he was injured as we didn't see him in the 2nd half and prior to that he was able to make yards against their pack down the middle. About the only prop we had who did.

I don't agree with this at all. Hunt was garbage throughout the game. I dread to think how he'd play behind Wigan's pack.

Smith isn't world class. But who is in this league? The truth of the matter is Wigan are too small in the pack. Watching them line up against Saints at OT I was completely shocked at how diminutive they appeared up front relative to Saints' pack.

I immediately knew that if we kept a lid on Wigan's backs we'd dominate territorially. And in big games territory is king.

I figured Wane would plug this gap in the off-season with a couple of big front row forwards. And yet last night it seemed like Wigan's biggest men were playing in the centres!

Had Brisbane ANY attacking threat to speak of in the halves or centres last night they'd have capitalised on the complete midfield dominance their forwards had achieved by half time and mauled Wigan. Instead they kept things simple and waited for a mistake in the opposition half. By the end of the match Wigan seemed completely unable to stop them making 10+ yards per carry. Which is the reason Brisbane had so many drop-goal opportunities.

The worrying thing is I don't think Brisbane's pack is THAT good. Granted they interplay well and there's plenty of size and energy. But it's nowhere near as ferocious as you'd encounter during Brisbane's heyday.

IMO, Wane has made a fundamental error in strategy. Yes, he's missing Flower - who does add significant go-forward. But even with Flower Wigan would have been awfully light last night.

Wane wouldn't be the first coach who thought mobility and fitness trumps brute force traction in SL. It's a tantalising thought promising high-speed "Total Rugby". But I wouldn't put any money on it.

The size of the pack is my biggest concern. We identify we need a big pack over a year ago and recruit no size at all in the offseason. Very odd call.

Ashton Simms would have been top of my list he is exactly the type of player we need.

Patrick turned up last night but he plays more like a backrow. Tautai gives us bags of go forward but will miss plenty through injury. Clubb brings size, Mossop.....who knows? Flower for we gives big minutes and great defence and intensity but not much go forward. If you have a big backrow you can maybe counter this but we don't.

We'll never know about the GF as it was ended as a contest after 3 minutes.

As for last night - we were down an interchange and had to put in a lot of effort on defence due to silly errors near our line. They were knackered by the end of the game.

Crosby, Clubb and Sutton are big units. We matched the Broncos upfront last night - they were getting smashed at times on their carries.

The FB/HBs are my biggest concern.

Nobody's saying he is (or could be) another Benji Marshall, but the fact is, we've seen him play much better last season that he has done so far this year. You can't complain when a player plays to the limits of his abilities, but Smith has so far failed to do that this season.

I didn't suggest that Hunt was good so I don't know what you're dissagreeing with.

During the extra time Smith had the first opportunity to keep a cool head and instead of snatching at a drop goal from an impossible position he could have kept his wits about him and kicked the ball deep into a corner. Therefore allowing the Wigan defence to pin Brisbane down just metres from that own line.

Instead you tried a drop goal that would have been miraculous had it been successful this then allowed Ben Hunt the opportunity to do exactly what Matty Smith had failed to do. From that field position Brisbane took a stranglehold and never relinquished it until Wigan gave the penalty away which ultimately ended of the game.

That is where Ben Hunt won the battle of wits with Matty Smith

I've never liked the Broncos much, but anyone who watched much NRL last season would know that Hunt is a very good half indeed who fully merited his Kangaroos cap. Bearing in mind it was only Brisbane's second game of the season, he did OK.

Maybe the fact that it was Wigan's first ever golden point match, whereas their opponents face the proposition every time they play, was a factor in the Bronco's extra time game management?

Brisbane's pack isn't that far behind any pack in the NRL. They have Thaiday and Parker who walk into the Queensland and Aus team every year. Add to that Glenn and Blair NZ Internationals obviously not that bad players and Maguire who narrowly missed out on the Aus squad and went on to represent Samoa well. Yeah awful pack Brisbane have!

Oh, don't listen to Mugwump! You won't see him for dust now that Saints 1st choice 'big forwards' got completely mauled in a much more spectacular fashion than Wigan's 2nd string 'Lightweight pack'! Anyone who can suggest that a pack consisting of Flower, Mossop, Tautai, Clubb, McIllorum, Joel T, O'Loughlin and Bateman/Farrell is lacking in either size, aggression or anything else is talking out of their arris. It's easy to be critical of a pack where only 1 of our first choice props was playing at full potential and our most important player in both attack and defence, not to mention our captain and onfield leader, was sat in the stands but to argue that it's somehow indicative of how the season will go or even, god forbid, that it's shows some sort of mismanagement on Wane's part needs to go and give their head a wobble!

I was unable to watch the game last night so only saw it this afternoon immediately prior to the Saints match. After reading some of the comments I was expecting our pack to be smashed all over the place. The truth was that, in defence at least, they were dominant over a very useful Broncos pack. TBH it was the Broncos who were being smashed and it was particularly noticeable that, when the two 'first 4' props were on, we got on top of the Broncos pack in both attack and defence.

As for the lack of yards; it was equally noticeable that Saints much vaunted pack were totally in the same boat and, perhaps, even worse! Countless times during the match they were restricted to just 25 or so metres per set and only Walmsley and, to a lesser extent, Greenwood won ANY collision whatsoever! Souths, in comparison were rolling up field with ease and were making plenty of metres in the majority of tackles AFTER the collision. In addition, their back row did feck all! At least Bateman, Farrell and Tomkins were able to make an impact.

This isn't a dig at Saints by the way. They were simply outclassed by a much better side. However, I'm sure I can't be the only one who is getting a little tired of these self congratulatory 'our pack is better than yours' posts when, in truth, we haven't even seen anything like our first choice pack take the field yet! Looking at the complete lack of go forward we saw from the Saints pack today, maybe we should see how they actually go against a full strength Wigan pack before we start making these judgements? Just a thought...

Well Souths pack took Saints apart last night.

It'll be interesting to see how the Brisbane v Souths game goes next week.

According to the majority of Saints fans Souths are light years ahead of Brisbane and St George, which is a bit strange seeing that Souths and St George played out a 12 all draw in their charity shield game a couple of weeks ago.