Golden Moments – Matty Smith v Salford Red Devils – 2017

You’re probably still feeling too physically sick at Saints Super League semi-final defeat to Warrington to have noticed much of the other RL-related news of the week. If so, you might not have noticed that Matty Smith’s move to Catalans Dragons was confirmed in the last few days. It brought to an end a third spell at his hometown club for Smith and led to whopping great billows of steam emanating from the ears of Dragons halfback Josh Drinkwater. The Australian has been credited with almost single-handedly transforming the French side’s season, from bottom four certainties during the cold snap of the early months of the year to Challenge Cup winners by the end of August. Yet despite Smith’s lack of involvement in Saints run to the League Leaders Shield in 2018 Dragons coach Steve McNamara thinks he is the man to lead his side around the field in 2019 as they look to improve on their eighth place finish.

Smith’s third spell at Saints has not been glorious. It started badly with a broken leg in a pre-season friendly with Widnes which kept him out of the side until late March when he started in a 31-6 home defeat of Warrington. That came after he had been signed by Keiron Cunningham amid all kinds of overly optimistic references to the Promised Land. The hard sell was that Smith had come home after a trophy-winning spell with Wigan to finally shine in the red vee number 7 jersey that had first been taken from him by Sean Long and then Kyle Eastmond in his previous spells. Finally he would fulfil his destiny.

It didn’t quite work out like that. By the start of 2018 Justin Holbrook, having replaced Cunningham as head coach, had seen enough to convince him that Danny Richardson should be the starting scrum half and that if a back was required on the bench then it would be Theo Fages getting the nod ahead of Smith more often than not. Smith last featured in a Saints match day 17 in early June during a 26-4 win over Hull KR. Amid suggestions that he was less than keen to play at Sheffield Eagles on dual registration the former England half was phased out by Holbrook and will now look to forge a happy ending to his storied career in the south of France.

Almost a year before that last appearance for Saints Smith enjoyed the standout moment of his final spell in Saints colours. Saints faced a visit from Salford Red Devils, five games out from the end of a regular season that had become something of a scrap to stay in contention for the playoffs. Saints remain the only side to have qualified for every playoff series since the inception of the Grand Final in 1998 but were in real danger of losing that proud record when Ian Watson brought his much improved Salford side to town. After years of mediocrity the Red Devils where finally challenging the top four at that point. This might well be remembered as the game which broke their resolve. They went on to lose four of their last five regular season games before falling in complete heap in the Super 8s, winning only one of seven to finally finish the season in a disappointing seventh place.

Saints meanwhile were the very definition of up and down ahead of this clash. The latter stages of the Cunningham reign had seen some toxic atmospheres at home games. The statued hero of the Saints faithful was reduced to the subject of boos every time his face appeared on screen during televised defeats at home to Wakefield and away at Salford. By the time Huddersfield clawed their way back from 14-0 down at half-time to draw 14-14 at Saints in early April Cunningham’s position became untenable. A trio of Under-19s coach Derek Traynor, former great Long and assistant Jamahl Lolesi took over on a temporary basis until Holbrook was appointed in May. During that time the mood lightened even if results didn’t immediately improve. A 29-18 loss at Wigan on Good Friday was thought mostly due to the harsh dismissal of Kyle Amor for a chest high tackle and there were fairly abject defeats at Widnes and Warrington before a very public 53-10 shellacking in the Challenge Cup represented something of a nadir.

A week after that BBC TV humbling at the Mend-A-Hose Jungle Saints, who had surprised runaway league leaders Castleford 26-22 on Easter Monday travelled to Newcastle to face Hull FC at the Magic Weekend. Holbrook was in the country and in the dressing room, along with former Brisbane, Cronulla and Canterbury fullback Ben Barba who was rumoured to be considering joining Saints after being banned from the NRL for 12 games following a positive drugs test at the end of the 2016 Grand Final. The boost given to the team by the arrival of the coach and the suggestion of a genuine superstar climbing on board had quite some effect on the Saints players, who blasted FC off the park to the tune of 45-0. They followed that with a narrow home win over Wigan and although a highly dubious offside decision denied them victory at Castleford they got back on the horse with a comfortable 26-10 home win over Widnes. They then went to Huddersfield and lost 24-16, so by the time the Red Devils rocked up on June 23 their playoff hopes remained in the balance.

In a tight first half Smith had gone over for Saints first try of the evening, converted by Mark Percival to give his side a 6-2 lead after Todd Carney had notched an early penalty. Niall Evalds pounced on a Zeb Taia error to score the first of his two tries to put Salford back in the lead but the teams went to the sheds level at 8-8 when Percival converted a penalty. Second half tries from Evalds, Robert Lui and Greg Johnson looked to have won the game for Salford, leaving Saints hopes of qualifying for the semi-finals hanging by the merest, anorexic thread. But those who thought that had reckoned without a Saintsy spell in which Saints scored three tries in the final seven minutes of the game as James Roby, Regan Grace and Jonny Lomax all went over in a frantic finale. If that evoked memories of Wide To West and the celebrated comeback at Warrington of 2005, what happened next went straight into the Smith family scrapbook.

Quite clearly peeved with the idea of having to settle for a draw in a game that they had been in control of five minutes earlier, Salford self-destructed. Taking possession of the ball just inside his own half with barely seconds remaining, Lui’s brain went for a walk taking the rest of his body reluctantly kicking and screaming with it. His chip over the top of the Saints defence cannot be accurately described by the term ill-advised but I’m afraid that is the nearest phrase at this writer’s disposal to sum it up. Never threatening to find a Salford team-mate, the chip fell kindly into the arms of a grateful Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, his top-knotted barnet flowing in the summer breeze as he turned to find Smith in space. Saints thrice forgotten man scooped up the ball and in one movement, a step outside the 40 metre line, planted a quite delicious drop goal straight between the uprights to turn a once certain defeat into a barely explicable win. In celebration he set sail towards the West end of the ground where the majority of the home support congregate behind the posts and triumphantly led the wild celebrations. It never got any better in a Saints shirt for Smith, but it was a memory that literally thousands of kids growing up playing rugby league on the streets of the town would kill for.

It was a real turning point for Saints if not for Smith. He was lost to an eye injury the following week in a 24-22 loss at Leeds but Saints finished the regular season with wins over Hull FC, Catalans Dragons and a first away success of the campaign at Wakefield to climb into the top four. They held the boat steady during the Super 8s despite defeats to Wigan, Leeds and Hull FC, beating Wakefield, Huddersfield and wouldn’t you just know it Salford in their final three to secure a playoff place and keep their tag of playoff ever-presents. Whereupon another famous drop goal proved their undoing in the semi-final against Castleford.

As Smith prepares to embark on what might well be the last journey of his career we prefer to remember his one-pointer rather than that of Luke Gale three months later.