Curtis Sironen, Sione Mata'utia's role, Jon Bennison, Jumah Sambou update

MC: Sione Mata’utia’s return gives you food for thought in terms of where to play him given the current weaknesses in the backline?

KW: Sione has played plenty of centre in the NRL and started his career as an outside back. He was the youngest ever debutant for Australia as a winger going back a few years. He is quite comfortable with the outside backs even if he has developed physically since then.

His best position by some is back row – and he is the best back row in the competition when he is playing there at his best.

That is where we want to get him back to but he can do a job in the centres while we have got injuries.

MC: Curtis Sironen’s sin bin and suspension must be frustrating given how well he’s playing?

KW: He has been playing great and has made some adjustments the last six or seven weeks and that is really showing on his on-field performance.

And he has been in our top couple of players in the last four/five weeks in particular.

I have been really happy with him and the impact he’s had and the way he has gone about his work on and off the field. And he’s getting rewarded for that .

He had a bit of ill discipline early on in the year – but he’s taken those on board and made adjustments.

I would not put the incident at the weekend in the same category – it is an accident where he has has to cover a lot of field at high speed and make a decision where a player is in a try scoring opportunity.

In that circumstance sometimes it can go a bit wrong. And that’s what happened.

We are really happy with how he’s performing – he’s out for two weeks but will come back fresh and finish the year really well for us.

MC: It must be doubly frustrating given that desperation came from defending the line after Paul McShane had dislodged the ball from Jon Bennison after the tackle?

KW: It was punched out – and although referee Chris Kendall had a fine game overall I thought that particular incident was the wrong call.

And yes, the next set we ended up getting a bloke sin-binned and suspended, I do get that, but at the end of the day that is never an excuse or reason.

Things go wrong in games all the time but what we preach about is how we respond to them. That is what we will keep preaching as well.

MC: You said after the game about Alex Walmsley getting back to his best. What factors has caused any drop off?

KW: I made comments after the game about the length of the season and how many games we expect our players to play.

What we have to remember is that falls on the elite players the most and they do that year after year with very minimal time off, minimal pre season and keep rolling into another year.

Al is one of those and he’s getting to the time of year where there is a fair bit of fatigue and that is something he has to deal with as an elite player.

He got over that bit of a hump now and he’s going to come good for the back end of the year.

Alex is a big game player who always comes good when the big games come around.

If you look at performance at the weekend can certainly where I see him going.

MC: Jon Bennison seems to grow with each game?

KW: I can’t speak highly enough – he’s a terrific kid and every time he goes out there he looks more like a first grader.

His best attribute is how hard he wants to compete and how well he learns.

I think you have seen his ability to learn in every game because he gets better with every occasion and you have seen his ability to compete on every play.

That is something we value as a team.

MC: Can you give us an update on reserve wing Jumah Sambou?

KW: He is out for the season. He got injured in the reserves about six weeks ago but that is where we are at as a squad at the moment.