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I thought he was underwhelming at first, but improved significantly. If memory serves me correct though his best period was at the time Pocock was out injured. If Pocock had been available I’m not sure they could have played Hooper, Pocock and McMahon together. But yeah - there was a period...

I loved Scott Higginbotham. But - he did get multiple chances and under more than 1 test coach. Ultimately I don’t think you can say he was consistently successful at test level. Guys like McMahon, McCalman and others all had some level of sucess at test level. None achieved sustained success.

I’m just worried if I don’t vote, a couple of Reds players might miss out. :)

This is indeed a problem. Most of the likely candidates have done some really good things. At the same time the same guys have had poor moments too. For the second week in a row the Team of the week will be tough to pick as there will be a lack of worth contenders in a few spots.

Any idea on time frames of any of those Reg? My understanding was Petaia would be right for next week. What do you know about the rest?

I think the biggest issue was that Lynagh, Thomas & Grealy were all already on the field and Vunivalu got injured.

It just seemed like we found ever way we could do blow a try. Our driving maul seemed able to make good metres - but we got done for obstruction on one 5 meter lineout and overthrew another. Flook was home and he tried to catch one handed. Wilson overran the pass with an easy draw and pass to...

He’s been great all year. And was Red’s Stan Pilecki medalist last year. Apart from today IMO he’s still been better than Langi Gleeson this year. Edit: and I think Langi Gleeson has been damned good. He had a mixed bag today but still made a bunch of key runs and a truck load of tackles.

Actually I thought that was one of Zander’s better games too. Will be interested to see the stats but he seemed to be going forward in the scrums and industrious around the field.

I thought Annan was solid on debut. Did we leave about 20 - 30 points on the field in the first half? Game should’ve been over at half time.

Talk about winning ugly.

Eddie might not be sentimental - but you don’t cast aside a 100+ test Wallaby, who two years ago was a world rugby player of the year nominee lightly. Not saying he’ll get any favours - just that his experience and class will be highly valued.

I guess the problem with Holloway, Valetini and Hooper is that you have no real on baller which hurt us last year. Hooper’s last two games haven’t been the best, but I still think he is in the box seat for 7 and Valetini will be one of the other two. I know there is a priority around our 6...

I’m not disagreeing with your concerns/observations around right 5 and our weakness there over the last 20 years. I absolutely agree. But I think it’s clearly wrong to say we’ve always had an abundance of good backrowers. Unless you mean an abundance of good 7s, in which case I agree. All the...

A couple of years ago we had Pocock & Hooper in the back row because there weren’t enough test level backrowers to push one to the bench, and we consistently struggled to fill the 3rd spot, let along bench depth. We had a succession of guys like McMahon, Mumm, a rookie Hanigan, Dempsey...

Was there any report on Gamble’s injury?

Okay. But that doesn’t actually address what you wrote. I’m not defending Rennie’s training practices. But to state he did contact training all week isn’t proven by a couple of head knocks in one session.

Genuine question - do you know that as fact? I’ve heard plenty of speculation about Rennie’s training but I think that’s the first I’ve heard that it was full contact all week. Certainly I’ve hear a lot of the sessions were physically torrid - but my understanding was that it was more high...

We have Paisami, Flook and Henry as first choice centre options. At the moment we just need someone to provide injury cover there. We could play O’Connor there, but it would be stop gap. Which could be fine, but I have no issues with Thorn blooding the next in line. Annan will have experienced...

I’m confident we are in a better place - but again, that’s not all due to Rennie. Our young 10s all now have several years pro rugby and there is genuine competition. There is genuine competition and depth at lock and backrow that we haven’t had in 15 years. We have unearthed a few clear test...