HU8HFC wrote:In the same article Tony alludes to keeping M Smith at 7, FWIW I thought he looked more comfortable there compared to playing at 6 in the derby.
I wouldn't be shocked if Hoy remained at 6 and have Nu Brown come off the bench for Houghton, which in my opinion is something we should utilise more often.
Think this might be the way we are going. My feeling is we will get the best use out of Brown by bringing him off the bench at that 20-25 minute mark when the game intensity level drops off a touch, and move Houghton to 13 at that point. Reckon Brown's energy and creativity will best best served in this game plan.
I'd also keep Hoy-Smith as the half-pairing, persevere with them and hope they can strike up an effective understanding which at least gives us some direction on the park, especially once we have our first-choice pack back on the pitch. It's not perfect, but we can only work with what options we have at the club right now.
What we don't want to do is start chopping and changing the halves on a weekly basis looking for some magic combination which suddenly works. Clearly, Truman isn't going to be back any time soon, so, think Smith needs to pick his pair and stick with them and trust that a relatively settled side will at least make us competitive in the months to come.
