Out of interest has his technique changed?

There have been a few comments made about him rushing his kicks recently and wondering if this is a new thing or just something people are observing because of all the misses.

I can’t see any harm in letting someone else have a go at this stage and let Smith focus on his game.

Correct let someone else have a go Hampshire, 3 kicks from 15 is not good enough from Smith.

Unlikely to be in the team though. It’s probably going to have to be Wardle if we do change it.

What was his record last season?

I've also seen him in the academy and kick well. I think it's possibly a confidence thing with him that a good early kick means he'll nail the rest rather than overthinking things. His normal game seems to go the same way too.

His record this year is not good enough and someone else deserves a chance at kicking. If we haven’t got anyone else, then more finger pointing at Radlinski who other than sending out a few bottles of scotch to opposition players, needs to actually earn his money in the recruitment department. No team can afford to have a halfback who goes into their shell and produce what he has done over the last few weeks. Peet has dropped other players so I don’t understand the issue with dropping Smith for what he’s served up recently. He’s got a big contract over a number of years now and and we need to hold him to those standards rather than being an academy product finding his way in the game.

As I said earlier in the thread (or on another one) we need prop forwards and SRs. Unless they also kick goals then it isn't something we should recruit for.

It's his recruitment in the forwards that has caused more problems. Whilst acknowledging that it will be a joint decision making process between Rads and the coach, hes been the consistent figure across three coaches and a really poor record. FPN, Tautai, Burgess, Clark, Bullock, Mago, Silva, re-signing Clubb. Ellis and KPP decent enough but not amongst the top forwards in the league. Kris has not spent the money provided by the chairman wisely - we are still in need of powerful, athletic forwards with a physical presence.

I try not to think of the forwards we’ve signed under his stewardship, it’s painful. Problem is, I’m sure Radlinski tries not to think about it either and he’s the one with the power to do something. I don’t think he’s been held to account by IL and rewarding him this year with more power seems a terrible mistake in how we go forward as a club.

There is more to it than just Rads signing the players. Jukesays explained it on here that it’s a decision that is made between various people, including the coaching staff, Waney, Rads and Lenagan. I recall when Mago and Ellis came in that Matty Peet himself said he had spent time scouting them.

I don’t think the forwards are a massive issue when they’re all fit. The attitude has been the issue more often than not this season. They showed everyone the level they can reach in that Leigh, Saints and Wire run but we have been so far off that before and after it and there has just been a total lack of intensity. I’m confident we’ll have had a good season when all is said and done in October. I think we’re holding plenty back tbh.

They went into great detail at the first fans forum post COVID about it and that's the jist of it. The whole coaching setup is included in decisions with their own input.

I acknowledged it will be a joint decision making process in my post but the point remains that Rads is the consistent figure across three different coaches. And unlike the coaches, recruitment and retention should be his main involvement in the performance of the first team.

Putting aside the finger of blame, the fact is Wigan as an organisation have recruited too many forwards who ultimately have been disappointing.

I don't know how much say Rads has in the actual player. Sounded to me like he is just there to ensure said player fits under the cap.

Lam for example chose to sign Sammut and almost demanded we did against the rest of the panels choices. Then he didn't pick him and instead picked players he was told weren't fit (hence my post about Jai and the different regime)

Ultimately, the coaching staff pick the players based on how they want us to play.

Our problem yesterday again was the amount of errors we made and ball we coughed up to a big pack.

Imagine if we pulled Owen Farrell out of the bag for next season. Now that would solve things for the short term.

I keep saying about OF that I'm not sure what he brings apart from kicking, but I think he'd make a great 13 in this current side.

Peet told me that he enjoys watching the NRL around Origin time as more squad players get a chance to play, players who would be available for SL.

So he’s involved in scouting.

I think that our biggest problems are an unbalanced squad and lack of experience in key areas.
We’ve got no really experienced HB. Hampshire is a fill in. Never in a month of Sundays will he a starting HB. As a FB he’s a liability.
Apart form Farrell no other real quality in the backrow.
I don’t particularly like using backs for hard yards as it covers ineffective forwards.
Cust, Field, Mago, Miski French and Ellis are all limited in terms of really good nrl experience. I love watching Field and French but without a good platform they cant deliver on a regular basis against well coached teams.
Walters isn’t the answer in terms of improving a weak front row. Better than Mago but nothing spectacular.
We need at least 3 really good experienced forwards to to make us competitive.
I think Powell only retains his place due to lack of experience elsewhere in the squad. For me he only keeps his place due to his experience.
Forber will be become our first choice 9 by 2024 at the latest.
Any thoughts of of a GF win for me are totally delusional.
Despite that negative rhetoric I’m still confident that if we can sign 3 experienced decent forwards we won’t be too far away in 2024.

You mean no history apart from last year?

I agree with most of the statement, but there seems to be an issue with the backs taking runs out of defence, I cant think of a recent successful team in the NRL that didnt have backs that laid the platform from defence to attack. Yesterday the commentators were admiring the Panthers backs efforts and noted that the pack only came into effect on around the fourth tackle when they were coming out of their half.

Not sure where this notion is that Smith has been a great goal kicker. Throughout his junior years I believe he was kicking at around the 70ish % mark.

Last season a lot of Wigan's tries were scored under the sticks or close to them- breakaways from Field/French whereas this season a lot more have been scored by your centres and finished by wingers in the corner.

He did kick at 100% throughout the 3 match Test series against Australia's Academy but he's never really got to those levels since.

Since this never got answered and as Jukes has pointed out without giving a figure, Harry smith kicked at 82% last year. Which would put him as tied 2nd most accurate kicker last season out of anybody with a noteable amound of conversions. It's also worth noting that he did kick more than either of the other 2 by quite a margin aswell.

Ratchford - 85% successful conversions, 75 attempts
Harry Smith - 82% successful conversions, 110 attempts
Chris Hankinson - 82% successful conversions, 77 attempts

There is a good kicker in there somewhere, and he proved it last season in my opinion. I agree with the comments about how he is a confidence player, and he seems to be lacking that at the moment in the kicking department. I would be all for giving him a break from the duties and letting somebody else take the burden until he feels he is ready to take it back up again. It seems like this thought may already be in motion within the team as didn't (i think) Field take one of the conversions at Magic?

I am not up for the idea of dropping him from the team though, he is playing behind a beaten and undermanned pack at the moment so his general effectiveness is likely to drop. I still see signs of him doing good stuff on the pitch, his in game kicking is still good, he is still thowing some good passes and assisting in the tries we score. I think dropping him all together could be a bigger rock to his confidence then just a temporary break from kicking. That's before you get onto who would replace him? Can't say i have too much confidence yet in Field and Cust after Magic, not convinces Field was fully fit myself.



Don't really buy into this notion if i am honest Stu, we did score our fair share of breakaway tries, but we also scored plenty on the edges too with our wingers scoring 52 tries between them. Saying he had mostly easy kicks is abit disingenuous imo and surely not to the level of elevating a kicker by 12ish%.

You can still have wingers scoring tries under the sticks though. It would be interesting to see exactly how many of his kicks last season were difficult ones. French would often score a breakaway try but still under the sticks.

This isn't true Stu. I remember saying last year that we score most of our tries out wide. Even if we had 10 break away tries that ended up under the sticks (and I'm being generous there as not all break away tries end up under the sticks as chasers back often force them out wide) it's still in single figures percent of his overall kicks taken. He still kicked way more from out wide than the next best kickers kicked in total! That's a sobering thought...

Quote ="Stu M"You can still have wingers scoring tries under the sticks though. It would be interesting to see exactly how many of his kicks last season were difficult ones. French would often score a breakaway try but still under the sticks.'" Decide for yourself pal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB8fvoH ... ScoutingRL There may be a few more with his burst of speed closer to the sticks than your average winger, but not enough to be an outlier and many are still in the 1/3 of the pitch closest to the sideline. As a side note, what a year French had. That's just 1 season's of tries, and is probably better than most player's career highlight reel!

Quote ="Stu M"You can still have wingers scoring tries under the sticks though. It would be interesting to see exactly how many of his kicks last season were difficult ones. French would often score a breakaway try but still under the sticks.'" Decide for yourself pal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB8fvoH ... ScoutingRL There may be a few more with his burst of speed closer to the sticks than your average winger, but not enough to be an outlier and many are still in the 1/3 of the pitch closest to the sideline. As a side note, what a year French had. That's just 1 season's of tries, and is probably better than most player's career highlight reel!

Smith was statistically the best kicker in SL last year
Smith kicked them from all over the shop last year Inc. More than his fair share from out wide

Quote ="BoredWiganer"Decide for yourself pal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB8fvoH ... ScoutingRL There may be a few more with his burst of speed closer to the sticks than your average winger, but not enough to be an outlier and many are still in the 1/3 of the pitch closest to the sideline. As a side note, what a year French had. That's just 1 season's of tries, and is probably better than most player's career highlight reel!'" Cheers for this. Absolute confirmation of what I said above. All bar one of the "breakaway" tries finished out wide.

Quote ="BoredWiganer"Decide for yourself pal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB8fvoH ... ScoutingRL There may be a few more with his burst of speed closer to the sticks than your average winger, but not enough to be an outlier and many are still in the 1/3 of the pitch closest to the sideline. As a side note, what a year French had. That's just 1 season's of tries, and is probably better than most player's career highlight reel!'" Cheers for this. Absolute confirmation of what I said above. All bar one of the "breakaway" tries finished out wide.