No selection headaches for Smith (From Warrington Guardian)

No selection headaches for Smith

5:56pm Thursday 28th February 2013 in Wolves news By Christopher Terris Taylor

WOLVES boss Tony Smith does not believes the return of Bennie Westwood throws up any selection ‘headaches’, despite praising last week’s replacement Simon Grix for his performance in the second row.

Grix was the subject of Smith’s approval in the post-match press conference after the 24-10 win at Hull FC, with the 27-year-old forward topping Wolves’ metres chart and making more tackles than all but Michael Monaghan and Paul Wood.

Westwood returns this week from a one-match suspension handed out for fighting with Brent Webb in the victory against Catalan Dragons two weeks ago, though Smith does not envisage any problems selecting between the two for Sunday’s trip to Craven Park, kick off 3pm.

“Even though Benny is back I won’t have any selection problems with him and Simon,” he said.

“Simon is a high quality player and he has done a terrific job for the last few weeks.

“But Benny’s return doesn’t offer me any selection headaches, because they’ll both be there or thereabouts and I have no doubt they’ll both be in the 17 for Hull KR.”

Smith will be hoping that his side start more brightly than they did against the Airlie Birds and though he blamed the long bus trip for their slow opening last week, he is not convinced the repeat journey on Sunday will cause the same problems.

“I know I said after the game that it was possibly down to the long journey that we had a flat start,” he said.

“That is an unproven science, guessing the reasons why things like happen.

“Players can be a little bit off for a number of reasons and we had a few that were not quite at their best.

“They were a bit lethargic, whether it was the bus or whatever else, but we’ll hopefully get rid of that this week.”