Smith aiming to bow out in style
YORKSHIRE CARNEGIE centurion Matt Smith hopes he and his fellow leavers can sign off on a high by helping the club into its first-ever Championship final.
The second-row, who passed the 100-game landmark for the club back in March, is among several players not to have had their contracts renewed due to budgets cuts.
With the £1m-a-year Carnegie title sponsorship deal coming to an end this summer, the club’s board have had to address a big clear-out of personnel.
Smith told TRP ahead of Friday’s semi-final against Ealing Trailfinders: “There are some players moving on and some who haven’t been retained but, as a group, I think it would be great to end by achieving the dream that the club sold to me and others – to be in the Premiership.
“I’m still looking for another contract elsewhere. This season has gone really well for me and it’s disappointing that I find myself in limbo.
“But I’m giving everything to try to get us to the Prem, and if we get there, then, hopefully, I’ll get a new contract because there will be more money available from the RFU. If we don’t and I play well and catch the attention of someone else, then that would great for me, too.”
Signed from Cornish Pirates in 2012, the former UWIC student reached one Championship final with Pirates and would love to do so again at Carnegie.
“In four out of five years at Leeds/Yorkshire, we’ve made the play-offs but never reached the final.
“A couple of times we’ve nicked into the top four and not really had any momentum with us. This year it feels different, there’s been a change in mind-set. We’re not just happy to be in the play-offs. We want to get to the final.”
Smith expects a fastpaced, high-scoring game on Ealing’s artificial surface on Friday.
“Ealing are a strong team, they can score a lot of points and have lots of good individuals, and the pitch is obviously an advantage to them.
“Scrum-time is where they were strongest when we played them the other week, and that was a real danger and something we spoke about as a group of forwards. We know what we need to do to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
“Generally speaking, we have to bring our A-game. It is the play-offs and when you get to that stage of the season, teams will punish you if you switch off or fall down in certain areas.”