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I will be very, very, unhappy if we've lost Situati. Not at all fussed about the others, but he's exactly what we've been needing for ages.

While we do need players with wheels out wide, we really do need to be looking at our flyhalf depth. I hope we've been sounding out young players like Horwitz (sp?), Ihaia West and similar.

I'm saying that shuffling the backline isn't going to help things. I mean come on, you've just said AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) has a reasonable boot. It's pop gun at the best of times. If you want to change the halves then fair enough, swapping AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) and Folau helps no one and achieves nothing.

That's a good point. The thing is though, we aren't marginally worse, we're getting completely fucked up.

Deckchair shuffling to no end and no purpose. The backs will remain a marginal influence until we develop a pack that can at least gain parity even if it can't achieve dominance. So, do we say this current lot aren't up to it and start handing out caps to young players such as Sio, Pyle...

WorkingClassRugger Nah, Colby is significantly better than Reid at the moment. Reid has a bit of mad dog about him, in the Beau Robinson way, but he's an absolute penalty magnet - almost to the point of being a liability. He's got a lot of potential, but he's not there yet. And Jones.

Exactly. It suddenly starts to look like a real strength. I actually quite like Hegarty. We're so used to seeing players with these incredible skills that it's easy to overlook someone like him. He's not incredible by any means, but he'll do a job. We absolutely need someone else, don't get...

Pyle plays a very similar game to Neville in fairness, they both play pretty loose. Higgers tightened up significiantly this year. I'm sure a lot of that is coaching as well. Players don't just decide to go hang out in the wider channels because they feel like it, well, most of the time anyway...

Yep. A locking combo of Timani and Pyle basically gives you the perfect tighthead-loosehead balance people have decided is absolutely crucial over the last year or so. He sorts the scrum out and the lineout would still be fine. Pyle can obviously jump, Jones and Higgers are fine, so you've still...

Nah, he isn't lazy. He plays a bit wider than I'd like, and he doesn't use his body as effectively as he could, but he's nowhere near as bad as people making him out to be. Competition and depth are good things. I'd be very happy to pick him up. Our scrum would tighten up and he would give us a...

What the fuck? Just need a few more white chaps and we'll be right? What Fijian or Tongan have we stolen... ever? Christ, I'd be down for some stealing if we could get another Noriega out of it. As for the rest of your post... We're actually really pretty competitive as a rugby team. The last...

Sopoanga is talented, but a flake. I'd be looking at him through my fingers if he ever stepped out for us. Treeby I really like, would be thrilled if we could get our mitts on him. Couldn't really care less whether the player is Australian or not to be honest. I realise that's not the...

Ash I know what you're saying, and the stats might completely disagree with my impression, but he just doesn't seem to have any impact on a game. He doesn't make things happen. And not in an x-factor way either, he just never seems to be able to take the game by the scruff of the neck and make...

Written elsewhere, but my first thoughts Mogg was genuinely awful. Horribly exposed. That's him done for a good long while. Need more go-forward in the forwards. I'd start Sio, get Fardy in for MMM too. Moore looks flat to me. Although the idea of starting Fainga'a leaves me cold. I'm...

Stirzaker was very average for Manawatu in the ITM Cup.. Probably the worst game I've seen from him. Pass was very shaky, not quite Phipps-esque, but still pretty poor. Made a couple of decent runs but looked a yard slower than usual. Was dragged after about 50 minutes. Lahiff looked very solid...

You reckon that's enlightening? I thought it was a very shoddy, lazy, piece of journalism. It's a thousand-odd words of speculation backed up with some fairly specious quotes from 'witnesses in the room' and similar. Not quite sure how O'Connor becomes the ringleader when the same article, with...

I'd actually like to see the Rebels do something like the NFLs Hard Knocks this pre-season. There's plenty of storylines to run through, wouldn't be that difficult to create a half-decent narrative. Delve gone, JOC (James O'Connor)+Beale gone, Hill gone, laughing stock of the competition, lots of young talent -...

Funnily enough he's always been better for the Wallabies than he has the Rebels. He's a trier, he makes an absolute fuckload of tackles, has a decent running game. However his passing and speed to the breakdown seems to range somewhere between average and diabolical. Miles better than that...

Don't flounce mate. I actually think the club need to get on the front foot a bit more in the off-season. People don't just stop following rugby for the months it's not being played. And when there's no information coming out save that we're losing coaches and players, it's easy for people to...

Of course he's playing favourites, all coaches do it. McKenzie clearly sees Sio as the first choice loosehead and is looking to bring in a project player as his replacement. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, he clearly sees something in Anae so he's giving him a crack. I just don't...