Billy Smith - congrats

[ARD]

How’s Rob Toia’s rehab going? He looks the goods.

[Recky62]

Smithy was the grouse yesterday , although I was a tad concerned when Cyclone Magic round arrived , wonder if he was thinking the same ?…probably not , either way he was either close to best on ground if not MoM

[Kelby]

Massive game by Smithy. Having a proper centre shows on the field.

Now bring back Sammy, Manu back to centre and JS to the wing again. Throw in Toops and our attack should roll again.

[Bates]

I was thinking he may have been a bit tentative on that minefield yesterday. It will be great to have him playing with confidence on a good track.

Billy deserves to have a long and prosperous career. He's a good lad!

[BondiBob]

Massive game by Smithy. Having a proper centre shows on the field.

Now bring back Sammy, Manu back to centre and JS to the wing again. Throw in Toops and our attack should roll again.

We need to get Gus and Sitili back in the run on team - the Butchers have no punch from the back row - once or if we get some good foundation then the backs can do their thing - Suailli is a Winger or possibly a Fullback he seems to confined in the Centres or perhaps that is because Keary is running across field and not straightening the attack

[zac]

he was great - didn't look like a player expecting to get injured in every tackle

[NorfolkStreetKid]

I was nervous every time he ran the ball or got tackled, Imagine the guts it has taken for him to get back on the field in FIRST GRADE. Hats off to Billy, if he goes injury free he could be a champion, well actually he already is. Well done young man.

[BigMacAndCoke]

We need to get Gus and Sitili back in the run on team - the Butchers have no punch from the back row - once or if we get some good foundation then the backs can do their thing - Suailli is a Winger or possibly a Fullback he seems to confined in the Centres or perhaps that is because Keary is running across field and not straightening the attack

100% agree Especially getting Sitili back on the field, he's a tremendous ball runner which they've lacked on the edges. The Butcher boys are workers but lack size and also lack the attacking impact Sitili provides. Hopefully a few games under his belt will start sooner rather than later.

[Qld Chook]

Good on Billy. Looks like a genuine left centre that could trouble teams.

[BigMacAndCoke]

I was nervous every time he ran the ball or got tackled, Imagine the guts it has taken for him to get back on the field in FIRST GRADE. Hats off to Billy, if he goes injury free he could be a champion, well actually he already is. Well done young man.

I was impressed with his aggression, I was expecting him to be abit tentative which u couldn't blame him. He also looks like Hes put on some size as well.... fingers crossed it goes well for him the rest of the season

[Vasco]

Good on Billy. Looks like a genuine left centre that could trouble teams.

His defensive reads are good also.

After one game he's now cemented the left centre position in my eyes. Now for Manu to be put back on the other side and we finally have some punch out there.

Suaalii to right wing and Paolo to the Bears. Walker back to five eighth. Sitili and Crighton as starting second rowers. Nathan Brown on to the bench

I'm feeling better already.

[Sentimentinel]

Love me some Billy Smith.

[Steggles]

We need to get Gus and Sitili back in the run on team - the Butchers have no punch from the back row - once or if we get some good foundation then the backs can do their thing - Suailli is a Winger or possibly a Fullback he seems to confined in the Centres or perhaps that is because Keary is running across field and not straightening the attack

100% agree with you on Sitili and Gus. Keary was successful at running across field in years gone by because he had the pace to burn lazy defenders, get on the outside and create an overlap for his outside men. Unfortunately he’s lost a bit of that pace and now it’s just clunky.

[Bondicigar]

So tough and was not gun shy at all
he is going to be a great player .
iv been watching Campell Graham and thinking he would be great at the chooks, then Billy comes back and plays like a clone of Cambell Graham.

[ism22]

He was immense, showed more than Suaalii has all season.

182m, 24 tackles, a line break and 2 like break assists... he had our highest number of 'fantasy points' (which is a silly metric but reflects runs on the board) despite a wet night, a rough turf and having played virtually no first grade for multiple seasons.

The guy's got no secrets to hide, he just bleeds RWB and plays proper 'Roosters footy' as a result.

My only query (since there's lotsa Sua'ali'i bashing going on) is whether it's a bit like Darius Boyd scoring all the tries when people are fixated on GI. IMO it's likely that teams are marking Sua'ali'i outta the game because he's so good. Smith didn't get those stats by farking around, but I wonder whether having somebody who's not a superstar throws a cat among the pigeons because people dunno what to respect! I doubt anybody did their homework on Billy Smith pre-game (let alone expected him to play). I'm glad he did play because he taught some of our $$$ players a lesson by doing so.

Footy's not hard!!!! Play hard and play with intent... the stats will follow. It's amazing that it took Billy Smith to teach us all this. Who gives a fark whether you're a superstar who thinks they'd be better at FB? What we NEED is more selfless efforts like Billy's where centres play CENTRE and aim to play the role of centre as best as possible.

It's too bad John Olsen died recently as he was the master of this (shoulda gotten him in for a chat). I always loved how he described painting his famous frogs. Forget his wording but he basically said that he went out to paint to world's best frog and everything just came to him when he knew that was the job that needed doing. I'd love to see a few Easts performance where everybody just wants to do their position as best as possible rather than everybody trying to be a halfback while a 20 year old (dumped to reggies) sits around going 'WTF?!?!? I'm the halfback... how about I do my job as best as possible and all of you do your jobs as best as possible?!? No egos, just work for each other!!!'