Tim Smith....

[chris1234]

The views on tim smith have always been greatly divided, he's like marmite, you either love him or hate him. I'm the later. Having watched smith in the nrl playing for parramtta it is obvious he has bags of potential but let's himself down at times with his off field events. Being an east stand season ticket holder I have seen glimpses of what won smith his awards in Australia and I'm hoping that he can further improve to get back to his best. Smith has never been a half back that takes the line on enough and tends to be a ball player with shrewd passes and shows. It raises the questions would you start smith against saints? Knowing that a strong attacking team will target smiths dubious defence(celtics and Wakefield) with the previous two games being against teams which are arguably not half as strong in attack as stains. Also where do you play smith? Smith at 6, sam at 7 leuluai at 9? I personally like smith at 7, but think at 6 he could get the ball out quickly to gleeson who has a dangerous partnership with Roberts in the making. I'm really glad smith is beginning to start to show his true colours and think he and Sam could have a quality half back partnership with smith excelling in the passing and ball playing department, whilst Sam has the best footwork and ability to spot a gap ive seen for a long time. All in all I'm a big tim smith fan, and I hope he can continue to gain more confidence each week and continue to fire those quality passes to ainscough and co out wide to finish off. Keep it up timmy!

[GeoffN]

The views on tim smith have always been greatly divided, he's like marmite, you either love him or hate him. I'm the later. Having watched smith in the nrl playing for parramtta it is obvious he has bags of potential but let's himself down at times with his off field events. Being an east stand season ticket holder I have seen glimpses of what won smith his awards in Australia and I'm hoping that he can further improve to get back to his best. Smith has never been a half back that takes the line on enough and tends to be a ball player with shrewd passes and shows. It raises the questions would you start smith against saints? Knowing that a strong attacking team will target smiths dubious defence(celtics and Wakefield) with the previous two games being against teams which are arguably not half as strong in attack as stains. Also where do you play smith? Smith at 6, sam at 7 leuluai at 9? I personally like smith at 7, but think at 6 he could get the ball out quickly to gleeson who has a dangerous partnership with Roberts in the making. I'm really glad smith is beginning to start to show his true colours and think he and Sam could have a quality half back partnership with smith excelling in the passing and ball playing department, whilst Sam has the best footwork and ability to spot a gap ive seen for a long time. All in all I'm a big tim smith fan, and I hope he can continue to gain more confidence each week and continue to fire those quality passes to ainscough and co out wide to finish off. Keep it up timmy!

He's definitely showing signs of improvement since he came back into the squad. If Riddell's injury is as bad as it looked, I think we're going to see TL and McIlorum sharing the hooking role, with Tomkins & Smith given an extended run together - which should be a good thing IMO. I still worry about his defence, but it's been obvious recently that other players around him are covering for him a lot more now.

[chris1234]

Yeah I agree, I think gleeson helps out in steadying smiths defence, and other such as lockers and bailey help smith in defence slot too. The prospect of Sam and smith at half backs with the two slightly differing styles ( smiths passing and SAMs running and footwork) complimenting each other, with a set of fast and strong backs the likes of what we have gets me excited. I think the backs are just finding what style they want to play, with gleeson and carmont/phelps proving to be excellent suppliers to Roberts and ainscough, and hopefully as they play together more and more the set moves will start to become second nature to them with Sam and smith running the show and setting the moves up for the other backs to finish. I think with the backs we have being controlled by two extremley talented half backs we should beat anyone on our day. That's providing the forwards set the platform, which il save that discussion for another thread haha

[ashtonned]

I am still far from convinced. He has had far more poor games than good ones and it is not that difficult to run riot when a team played as poorly as Wakefield did yesterday. Also it should not be up to other players to constantly cover for him in defence and the team shouldnt have to be selected with that in mind.

[OAMJSONA]

defense wins games

i rest my case

[GeoffN]

defense wins games

i rest my case

Too simplistic.

Generally speaking, the games we've won this season have been the high-scoring ones, where our defence has been relatively poor, but our attack good. Yesterday's was a typical example, we shipped 22 points but still won. Against Huddersfield we shipped 22 points and lost.

Most of the ones we've lost (Wakey, Hull, Saints) have been relatively low-scoring ones.

[cpwigan]

I refuse to get carried away. If I was coaching against him he would top the tackle count.

[OAMJSONA]

CP

only if he was tackling tins of aussie sheep dip

[cpwigan]

CP

only if he was tackling tins of aussie sheep dip

He would top the missed tackles too.

[gpartin]

Tim Smith is naturally a good player and will always have good games every now and then and even have a run of a few games where he is in the right frame of mind to play. He made some great passes at wakefield and was constantly patting people on the back (and Fielden on the backside ). However the nature of Bi-Polar is that sometimes he won't be up for it and won't perform, I just wonder if there is someone at the club who knows about the disorder and can recognise the times when he shouldn't be picked?