He was playing behind a beaten pack and Leeds were rushing up on him. I'm not saying a better halfback wouldn't have done better, but he did have a tough job on his hands. He put some decent kicks in too

I agree.

Apart from his kicking, and some of it last night was dire straight into Leeds hands. He doesn't offer many attacking options at all.

We need this feller to step up.

How many scrum halfs do you know who have a good kicking/passing and running game?
Tommy L was an excellent defender , strong runner but a poor kicker/passer.

His lack of a real running game isn't a major issue for me because he has threats around him on that score with obviously Sam Tomkins the major one and he's the best in the business. It's his decision making and quality of pass that i'm really worried about at the minute. I thought it was all going pretty well for him until the 2nd half of the Cas match when he missed runners in good positions with 2 or 3 passes to kill the game off and it's gone a bit wayward since then.

I'd see his role as a Paul Deacon type halfback for us of keeping the ball moving through the backline, keeping it nice and simple and playing a pretty error free game but that's the issue at the moment, there are too many errors and his decision making is off.

I think it's just a confidence issue and he'll get there. The one thing you could never say about the guy is that he isn't giving it everything because he is a real 100% man. If anything I think sometimes he tries too hard and becomes a bit frantic.

I thought he was woeful in defense against Cas but he wasn't on his own with ST, Charnley and Hughes all shirt grabbing and making a meal of Webster and Carney. Last night he was a lot better and his kicking game is a real asset to us, I just hope Blake Green compliments him a bit more with a running game and taking the line on more, his pass to Thornley could have been better when we were attacking in the 2nd half, but in contrast maybe Thornley's positioning wasn't the best. Personally i think the jury is still out on Green IMO. It's got to be about the 17 taking the field complimenting each other and I don't want two half backs that are similar in style. All in all i thought our performance was good and with a bit more field position we could have caused them a few more problems, basically we put ourselves under pressure more than Leeds did, i accept they bombed a few chances but so did we. With a few forwards back from injury and ST fit we will go okay, more confident now than i was at the start of the season.

Exactly.

Exactly. His attacking kicks in their half are strong, but he was often kicking for distance to get us out of our half due to poor field position on the 5th

I'm the complete opposite on Green tbh. I think he's been excellent aside from that poor effort on JJB the other night. His quality of pass is very good, he's linking up with Faz like a dream and is kicking pretty well. He's a leader as well and whilst maybe he could take the line on more I'm pretty sure he's just playing to instruction on that score.

More then happy with him to date.

I'm yet to be convinced by Smith also.

Often picks the wrong option and is caught out in certain attacking situations and his defence isn't great. His kicking game is a good attribute though.

I'm strugglng to see the debate here I'm afraid. We are talking about Matty Smith - how good does anyone expect him to be? He's been average throughout his career, what going to change now?

Smith has a good kicking game and he can be useful when running the ball, but he doesn't really run with the ball that often.

His defence hasn't looked great so far which is something he really has to work on and his decision making hasn't always been great.

I'd say so far he's been average.

At the moment we also have another player who has a good kicking game, who can read the game well but also has excellent defence and that's Sam Powell.

I'd like to see Powell given a chance to play at scrum half rather than coming off the bench and playing hooker. Smith would arguably add more to the hooking role and we'd get to see what Powell can do in his best position.

Said the same on Friday at the game.

Against Widnes I'd put Powell at 7 and use Smith at 9 to spell McIlorum just to have a lool at things.

I like Smith at 9 when I see him there.