BY DAN

If there was a concern about the Canberra Raiders acquisition of Morgan Smithies in the off-season it’s that he was a one-dimensional player.

Now don’t get me wrong that dimension was obviously of a very high standard. He’d proved both in the Super League and for England that he was capable of making a million tackles and running the ball with vigor. But the Raiders have let many forwards with that very skill set go before and plenty in reserve – they’re more common than the public servants chariot (the VW Golf) in the nation’s capital. Bringing him in at just 23 suggested the club saw something more in him than just a tackle bag with a big motor. Our hope was it was the agility to play edge, but that was pretty quickly dispelled; the primary evidence being the club’s ongoing pursuit of further depth at backrow.

So we were left hoping that Smithies might be part of the club’s desire to develop more ball-play in its middles. It’s been a focus of the club in recent years, driven by the departure of Josh Hodgson and the different skill sets of those that replaced him. We’ve seen it in the expansion of Corey Horsburgh’s role as a link across the middle, and also Joe Tapine and Josh Papalii playing a two-man gam at the line. Even Emre Guler’s been doing it, and the coming epoch of Hohepa Puru is a talisman in this regard.

The good news is that it seems that is happening. To be fair some of what we’d seen of Smithies had shown an ability to distribute the ball well from first receiver prior to his journey down-under. The question always was would his skill level match up to the NRL standard, and could he continue to develop it.

We won’t know for a fact until the real stuff begins but the word out of the club continues to be heartening. First Joe Tapine told us he’d “been really impressed with Morgs…he adds a bit of ball-playing in the middle.” Good start. This was confirmed by assistant coach Mick Crawley in a discussion with the Big Sports Breakfast on Tuesday.

Morgan, he’s something out of box. We’ve had a lot of luck with Englishmen over the years, and he’s as good as any we’ve had here. I watched a lot of his stuff in England but he’s an even better player that what I thought. I think he’s going to bit of a surprise packet in the NRL. He’s tough, young kid, good ball skills, real work ethic sort of player, and he’s fitted in really well around the group. I hoping for really big things from Morgan this year.

[Shouts to Chris Gibbons for putting me on to this interview].

So two mentions of good work ethic and key members of the Raiders hierarchy impressed and offering praise of the young man’s development unprompted. Colour me a little bit excited.

It’ll be interesting for the depth chart if Smithies continues to expand this skill-base. Does it make Hohepa Puru’s pathway to the top line more difficult. My initial view is no, on the basis that Puru offers more than just ball-skills and good service (but rather half-level creativity and a pace and agility not matched by most middles). It may mean that forwards that don’t have that skill-base find it harder to get a crack because the options for comparative advantage for the remaining middles become limited. It may also mean the club may have a good facsimile of Corey Horsburgh. The idea that Canberra will always have a 13 on the field that can ensure the attack has multiple poles around which runners can orbit is music to my ears (and likely the coaching staff’s).

But let’s focus on the bird in the hand. Two swallows hardly make a coming of age movie, but it’s a good start. We wanted to know if Smithies would be up to the NRL, and whether he would be able to expand his game beyond just being a workhorse. So far all the signs are good.

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