Time for a change or stick with Harry Smith?

I think it may need to go elsewhere. He looks to have lost confidence with it and if that knocks on in to his general
Play, that’s no good. The question would be who’d take over? I recall Wardle kicking a few in the past and asked a Huddersfield fan about him and he said he was a fantastic kicker in his academy days. Hampshire maybe bit you wouldn’t expect him to stay in the side in the longer term.

Why not just stick with him?
He hasn't "cost" us a game this year and I'm sure he'll be looking to regain the confidence and consistency that made him last years best kicker (pretty sure I read somewhere he only missed 20kicks all last year?).

I'm not falling for all the Facebook/twiiter experts who made their mind up about him 2plus years ago and said he was rubbish using a relatively short spell of inconsistencies now to Tey and prove they were "correct" in their knee jerk reactions 2 plus years ago

Rewatched a bit of Salford game at hime this morning, noticed he kicked 4 from 4 in a tight game that night. Did he "win" us the game then?
Plus his kicks against Saints and wire etc.

Patience for me

I’d say stick. 1/5 isn’t a great statistic but they were all out on the touch line. None of them were miles off either.

If it starts affecting the rest of his game then that’s a different matter.

We’ve no other choice but to stick with him if it’s clear there’s no one else practicing or in with a shout. I’ve zero confidence in his goal kicking but the lack of options is on Radlinski not Smith. He’s not going to say no if he’s asked to do it is he?

I think we will go that way. I’d just be cautious of it impacting on his general play because he’s been excellent this season and has probably only hit an iffy patch this past few weeks, when his goal kicking has also been at its worst so far this season. He hasn’t cost us a game but it’s been extremely close this past couple of games, with us being a bad option by Newman and the width of a post away from losing twice, in games where we scored 4 try’s to 2 and 5 try’s to 4 (at the time of the Lewis drop goal).

Unfortunately options aren’t exactly jumping out at us, so anything is a gamble.

Like most kickers, Smith bends the ball inwards, which makes conversions from the left touch-line very difficult (unless you kick pretty straight, like say Moses or Val Holmes). I can't see the harm in trying someone else from the left. Is that really going to impact Smith's confidence?

Botica and Farrell had a good conversion rate but since there has not been any 10 out of 10 kickers

That Pat Richards bloke weren't bad though.

Both Botica and Farrell missed a fair few as well - there are no 10 out of 10 kickers , anything consistently in the 80-90% range is exceptional and there is absolutely no pont in having someone in the team just as a goal kicker they have to be in the team primarily for playing in the position they are.

Will goal kicking cost a game soemwhere down the line - more than likely, just hope it is not in a big game that really matters.

Watching Smith it seems if he lands his first one he does far better - perhaps we need to tell the other player they have to score nearer the posts

instead of out near the touch line!

It would help Harry if we could occasionally score by the sticks.
We scored 6 tries v HKR and 4 against Leeds but only one of the ten was under the crossbar.

We clearly need to score nearer the posts which means a game plan to break the opposition down the middle of the field. Whether this is due to Cust being missing and replaced by Shorrocks I don't know but maybe. The way we take the opposition apart is by going wide and using Jai and Bevan's pace and that seems to be where most of our tries are scored.

Are there any goal kicking props about?

I don't recall seeing one of those for a very long time.....

Ken Gee was pretty good.
No reason to believe that a prop can’t kick if they have the confidence

Suspect Field will be given a go with his return imminent.

Stick with Smith, he’ll come good.

The Roosters had a prop who kicked goals a couple of seasons ago, can't remember who it was, thought it might have been Tetevano I was thinking of, who's now at Leeds, but it's not him.

It was Taukeiaho (not a clue if that spelling is right), who is now at Catalans.

Smith is a good goal kicker we’ve seen him been faultless in the past . He will come good on a more regular basis.

That's kind of my point.

We need props and potentially a SR. Let's not get too concerned with signing someone just because they can kick goals.

I worry about us more when we’re attacking on the opposition line, than I do attacking from our own half and part of that is because we lack a player who can pull the trigger accurately on a pass but also because we lack punch in the forwards or the type of player that is just difficult to stop close to the line. If you have those, your kicks do start becoming easier. Saints get regular try contributions from big, powerful forwards like Walmsley and Sironen but we lack that. It’s something I’m hoping Walters and whoever else comes in can solve and in turn it can improve the kicking percentages.

Good call, when was the last time one of our forwards broke a tackle and scored with a few players on their back?

Havard IIRC, it was a while back like.

We need to find a Lee Crooks from somewhere............

Ha, that's right! I thought it began with T!

Which is what I was saying as well - if you look at the best goal kickers around at the moment most are not positions we need or players we would really be interested in, if we could sign someone who is in a positon we nned to strengthen and happened to be a good goal kicker as well that would be a huge bonus. Perhaps we need to bring in someone who was a top goal kicker on a short term coaching contract to work with anyone in the squad to improve them.

We had Charlie Hodgson a few years ago and it worked wonders with Sam.

Wonder if Deacs fancies a summer job.