I am glad we won and the 2nd half was exciting but what Hudds did to Wire is irrelevant when discussing the game tonight. It has nothing to do with some obvious issues we have. Yes we are missing a number of players but our attack didn't look any good before Williams and MM got injured. We were just as useless in the first half v Leeds with a far better team out also only scoring six despite being camped in their 20. It's a recurring theme.

Brough is so much better than Smith its sticks out like a sore thumb. The only mitigating factor I can think of for Smith is Wane is restricting what he does insisting on a regimented plan of attack. If so Smith needs or grow a pair and act as a senior player ought to. Maybe that is what happened in the last 15 minutes. If so he needs to do it more often instead of flogging the dead horse that our attack amounts to.

In fairness to Smith he's played most of the season as the only first choice key pivot out of five (1,6,7,9 and 13) playing in his actual position and is pretty much having to do everything on his own when he isn't that type of player.

He pretty much plays what I call the "Deacon role" when everyone is fit.

Despite all this we're top of the league having not played well in attack almost all of the season so far, and expect to get everyone except McIlourm back next week or for the cup game.

Pleasing to hear that most are close to full fitness, not sure I would risk them all against Wire.

Similarly I wouldn't rush Sam back for the Dewsbury away game. No disrespect to them but we should have more than enough without him.
He deserves a big welcome back in front of the home crowd, possibly the Hull FC game? Might get a few extra bums on seats for that, our attendances recently have been startling!

I wouldn't rush them all back either, they aren't likely to be match fit and could leave us flagging toward the end of the match but as to Sam I was under the impression he was going to ready by then not rushed back for the Dewsbury game. I think it would be ideal to give him 40 mins if so.

Maybe he did in the last 15 mins what he should have been doing all season but very rarely has?
It's as plausible if not more so than he's a great scrum half who's being stifled by a coach for God knows what reason.

I am not suggesting he is a great scrum half. I was offering a possible explanation as to why he seems to play like a robot.

We obviously play a very structured form of attack. That is down to Wane. If Smith was a great scrum half he'd be breaking out of the mould more often when it doesn't work. If that is what he should have been doing all season as far as Wane is concerned and he hasn't, then I am not sure why Wane thinks the sun shines out of his bum as he clearly does.

+1
With 4 or 5 key players missing since Round 2/3 and an average 7/8 first 17players out for the past 5/6 weeks we could have been looking at a run of results similar to leeds/saints/hudds/hkr but instead we've won 8 from 11
Been on my mind this for a while because I knew we had 9poi.t-shirt last season after 9 games,we were 10 points after 5 this year.
I had a look at John monies four years at the club, and only in his last season did we get to 8wins quicker,the other 3 took 12/13/14.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be!

That's as good as anything since Maguire first season and I don't remember in the 5 intervening years having to go through as sticky a spell especially to key players with injuries.

I'm disappointed in smith a lot of the time for not doing some basic stuff however I cant fault the commitment and effort shown by any of the players so far this season.
It's been a joy to watch manfredi, Bateman, gelling,and sarginson since his move to full back.
Great to see Josh back to something like his best, TT performing well (i would have shown him the door after this year's Leigh friendly, how wrong was that,antimony worried about admitting it)and Mossop finding some form last couple of games,
Add to that in over the.moon with Sam Powell and young gregson has really impressed me.with how tough he plays, a few errors but that's understandable for me given the circumstances (could he fill in at 9 if needed).

He doesn't play like a robot, I'd be happier if he did! Robots very rarely have the inconsistencies that Smith does, they generally perform to a high standard quite often.

I was more interested at your inference that he did well in that 15minspell because he may have ignored wanes game plan etc. With no evidence to support that assertion.
It's equally if not more plausible that he actually started to do what wane wants him to do for 80 mins every week but doesn't.

If anyone seriously thinks that Wane is anywhere near 100% happy with Smith's performances they'd be wrong, I'm pretty sure Matty Smith knows that (in fact I know he knows,and he agrees himself).
Solving it is a different matter and immeasurably more difficult given the injury situation we find ourselves in this season.

Every player is given structures to play to and a certain amount of live.certainly to.play what's in front of them at times.
Top line is mattys not doing enough of either at this present time and more infuriatingly is not doing some of the basics and simple.game.management that he should be.
Most of that is down to himself.

I'm sure some posters here are gutted that we came away with a win.... Despite all out injuries to the squad, and the illness we recently had, we are currently top of the table.

For me it's the lack of options. In addition to the below there is a lack of runners, poor offloads, basic passing mistakes and bad decision making (which to be fair was Gregson a few times last night but he doesn't have the experience to know when a move is on and when to come inside).

Plan A; inside pass that's worked once maybe twice this season yet we try it 15 times a game.
Plan B; swing it out to the edges and hope the defence makes a read error. Our passing accuracy, passing speed and inability to draw the defender kills this move every time.

I hope we develop more to our game than these two plays when we get Sam, Williams and Lockers back. Until then I guess we just have to put up with it. Doesn't help that Sutton is absolutely not a pivot at 13, he's not a ball player at all, I've no idea why Wane keeps persisting with that.

I've heard from a rumour we've enquired about Albert Kelly from someone within the club.
I treated it as mere gossip, but he felt Kelly was someone we're interested in for next season.

Interesting. He's been ok with the ball when I've seen him but terrible defence and injured half of the time?

In fairness I haven't seen another of him to judge. Don't know if he'd make a good signing or not. I can recognise his strengths as a player, but not seen enough of him to make an educated comment.

Spot on. The idea that somehow Smith is under strict orders from Wane is daft and doesn't make any sense. Look at Gelling; I'm sure what we does doesn't always please SW, but he still gets a game every week! And rightly so, he was great again last night, with the good vastly outweighing the bad.

I was a 6' 2", 14 stone, quick Centre, i would imagine having Gelling coming at you would be a bloody nightmare...

Heh! He is a big lad when you see him close up, isn't he?

Yep, and i don't regard myself as "Small"...

Id probably look at a place on the bench for Tomkins at Dewsbury just to ease him back in for 20 mins towards the back end as long as he's 100% ready.

I agree about Wire as well. There's potentially 6 players to come back but to throw all of them in would seem too risky. I'd probably look to hold Williams back and only play one of Farrell or Joel Tomkins (whoever is closest to 100%). I'm guessing Tautai is going to be missing also.

That would leave us looking something like-

Sarginson
Manfredi Gelling Gildart Charnley
Lockers Smith
Flower Powell Mossop
Tomkins Isa Bateman

Clubb Crosby Sutton Gregson

That's certainly as strong as we've been since Good Friday.

We would be better of with Albert Steptoe. One for the teenagers to google.

That would be an interesting replacement.

From a guy to misses a lot of tackles to a guy who doesn't tackle at all.

Hmmm ...

Why do we always have 4 forwards on the bench?
Do backs never get injured? Why can't we have other options?
SOL doesn't seem capable of playing 80 minutes and Gregson for all his honest endeavours is never a 6 in the memory of man.
Id be tempted to put Higginson on the bench.
Personally I wouldn't have Isa in any starting 17. Has he made a break yet?

We don't "Always" but I agree 90% + of times we do and for me it's a straight forward answer.
We usually have 5/6 forwards that can do a job in the backs but not many backs that could go the other way.

At a push Farrell/Joel/Bateman/Lockers/Powell/Isa can all play in the backs

Whereas I would probably argue Gelling (And even then I bet he's not played 2 games there over the last 4 years) is the only one who could do a similar job the other way.

With regards to your other points
Lockers - He can do 80 mins and has done when he's played in the halves and 13 - Not when he's injured though
Gregson - I agree he's not a long term option but with Lockers/Williams/Tomkins out and Powell covering for Mickey Mac I'm not sure what other option he has (Please don't bring Hampshire into the argument - For whatever reason they've not recalled him and whether I agree with that is another issue but without the full facts I can only go with what we have).

I thought Higginson showed up well against Warrington - However realistically the only player who he could have replaced in the 17 last night would have been jack Wells who I thought put a decent shift in.
Either way not sure how having Higginson on the bench would have changed/improved the nature of our performance?

As for Isa - Thought he had a decent game last night (Apart from a poor dropped ball early 1st half) after a couple of average ones on returning from injury.
However (And I was going to bring this up a couple of weeks ago in the middle of the injury crisis)
I remember Monie saying in times like these he would pick his best 17 players and fit them in.
I tend to agree, I'm not sure which player didn't play last night would have improved that performance/result?

We were missing who weren't available due to injury etc :-
Sam T
Dom Manfredi
George Williams
Mickey
Dom Crosby
Joel T
Liam Farrell
Sean O'L

Who didn't play apart from those that should have been picked and with all that experience missing who would have provided that experience?

Needs must really at the minute. What I will say is that once we're at full strength I wouldn't mind seeing us run with Sarginson on the bench. He can cover every back position and I'd also like to see how he could go spelling at 9 with Sam Powell. If we want to change things up and go a bit more direct he'd really challenge defenders running out of dummy half.

A lot of the criticism of Smith has been unjustified. He has helped to hold together a vastly weakened team. I agree that he is not the flashy playmaker but he does his job week in week out. Powell has been something of a revelation this season but does not have the flair to his game and Gregson, although he has does splendidly for someone of his age, is never going to be a player in the Sam mold. We do look a bit pedestrian in our play but that is to be understood. Someone should have a word with Gregson and remind him that his try the other day and his near try came about when, instead of just shipping the ball across the field he stepped back at pace and took the line on.

Somehow I very much doubt there's teenagers amongst the regular posters here. On the contrary, recent posts suggest the average age is even higher than I'd imagined...