Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but for those who are knocking him or have knocked him, my observation is that other than Havard he's one of our props who consistently makes metres. His stats are usually only second to Havard in terms of metres gained.

Prop is an area we've struggled in for a long time I don't think we've truly had a dominant offering in this position since the days of Coley, Fielden, Jeff Lima and Paul Prescott and although there's still room for improvement in this area we are looking better during this (2022-2024) period than we have for a long time.

I for one am glad he has signed for a further three years.

If we just go Ellis verses Lees and look at games they’ve run above 100 metres or under 50 metres, it stacks up as below-

Under 50 metres

Ellis 2
Lees 4

Over 100 metres

Ellis 4
Lees 2

Ellis has done that in 13 appearances, against Lees 17 appearances. Ellis hasn’t gone under 50 metres since game 4 as well, so after a slow start he’s got better and better.

It’s not telling us everything but if Ellis ain’t good enough for the bench of a mid table team, Lees best pack up and head off to the Championship. I actually like Lees as well tbh and appreciate they’re slightly different in style (but fundamentally their jobs are the same).

Nothing against Lees, or Knowles either for that matter, but I've said many times they are both just good grafters. Neither has outstanding skill, they just (for the most part) work hard and with good intensity. There's nothing wrong with that. All teams need grafters. All teams need solid "7 or 8 out of 10 every week" players too. What gets my goat is how the Redvee lot elevate them beyond what they are whilst,at the same time, tagging players like Ellis as less than they are for fulfilling a similar role. Lees isn't a world-beater. He never will be. That's fine. Knowles isn't much better than Smithies (if indeed he has been better this season which I don't think he has). Neither will ever be Brad Fittler, Paul Sculthorpe or Ellery Hanley. That's fine too

Ellis is a quality player and a good addition to our team and culture and guess what? That's fine as well.

I have held back on saying this for a while, to just give him a bit more time to cement it in my mind but I now think Smithies has gone past Knowles. He’s outperformed him for a season and two thirds now and is adding things to his game. At the same time, I think Knowles has dropped off a little and has struggled to get his form going due to constantly missing games. Overall there isn’t much in it but there is no way I’d swap them.

Whilst I can't claim to have seen every Saints game, in the ones I have seen Knowles has been way off previous year's form. In fact he's been largely anonymous for the most part. One of our Saints posters would be able to comment with more authority than myself but, factoring in what I've seen Saints fans themselves saying; that he shouldn't be their loose forward any more and that it's time for Bell to step up, I would surmise that he hasn't been breaking any pots. They wouldn't suggest moving their self proclaimed "best player in the comp" from his favoured position if he was doing the business there.

With all that in mind I would say Smithies has comfortably overtaken him this season. Even last, several journalists had him over Knowles in their end of season Dream Teams and the statistics supported that view. If he's better (and as I say, my personal view is he hasn't been this season or for large parts of last) it's, at best, marginal. Given their respective ages, I wouldn't swap them either. The problem is, unlike Knowles, I think Smithies is casting his eyes at the NRL.

Until Knowles was mentioned I thought he had retired.
Smithies is a better player now.