Wigan must watch the bruiser who bounced back

The winter before last Michael Smith was spending his Saturday evenings as a nightclub bouncer in York.

He plans to be more glamorously engaged at the weekends for the next couple of months, in his new role as second-row bruiser for Castleford, who go to Wigan in tonight's intriguing Super League elimination play-off, and also for New Zealand, after his surprise selection for their three-Test trip to Great Britain later this autumn.

That made the 26-year-old's second honour of the last week, when he was included in the Tetley's Dream Team for the season, even more appropriate. As Smith admits, he hardly envisaged such a transformation when he asked Castleford for a second chance little more than 18 months ago.

"Things weren't going great for me, to be honest," said the burly Aucklander, who grew up playing rugby union for North Harbour before crossing codes - and the Tasman - to join Sydney's Canterbury Bulldogs in 1996.

"I almost quit league two years ago when I got involved in a legal battle with York. I went back home but decided to come back and ended up working on the front door of a nightclub. The best thing that could have happened for me was York going bankrupt. That made me a free agent, I managed to get another start with Cas and here I am now - in the play-offs and the Kiwi squad."

The transformation in Smith's playing fortunes has been driven by a complete change in attitude. During a season with Hull between his first stint with Castleford and that short spell with York, his off-field antics prompted a new song from the fans in the Threepenny Stand - "We're on the piss with Michael Smith".

Now he is fit enough to last whole games and he puts that down to the Cas coaching staff and their commercial manager and unofficial club comedian, the former prop Mick Morgan, who is his landlord.

"Mick's a funny man and there's never a dull moment in our house," says Smith. "But he's also helped me a lot with my game."

That improvement alerted New Zealand's coach Gary Freeman, although he had to be given a nudge, with Smith's Sydney-based agent sending him videos of Castleford's Super League matches.

Smith is one of four British-based Kiwis who have been selected for their busy autumn programme which includes Tests against Australia in Wellington and France in Carcassonne as well. Tonight he will be up against another of those four, Wigan's prop Craig Smith (no relation), and whoever ends on the losing side will fly home to take on the Australians.

Wigan are the favourites, having finished third to Castleford's sixth. But they have been hit hard by injuries, with Mick Cassidy, Sean O'Loughlin and the Britain prop Terry O'Connor all forced out yesterday to join the long-term absentees Brett Dallas, Brian Carney and Jamie Ainscough.

In addition Castleford have happy memories of a previous play-off at Wigan, the first game at the JJB stadium in 1999 - when their young Australian coach Stuart Raper plotted a famous win.

Raper is now in charge at Wigan and aiming to end his old club's dreams of Old Trafford grand-final glory after knocking them out of the Challenge Cup in the semi- finals in April.