Search results

Love the Irish insight as always. If my cousins knew how loosely I actually follow Leinster I'm pretty sure they would disown me. :oops:

I'm fearing an Ospreys ambush this weekend for Leinster. Aside from Gopperth finding the G-spot twice and Healy's performance I found it really hard to pull many positives from the Castres game. I'm actually still trying to process the fact that Leinster actually won that one.

When Spiros Zavos is the one writing the most level-headed article about anything to do with the Wallabies you know things are messed up..

They should have fucking kept him. His running game would be devastating in the context of their current system. For mine it's Braid in first with Delve following closely behind, then Ged.

Makes sense. It usually only takes ~2 phases for the backs/forwards to start mixing and true back-on-back or forward-on-forward isolation is a thing of the past largely relegated to the set pieces. It was apparent last year, and this seems to be buoyed by the evidence that you've provided, that...

Ben Mowen has achieved a lot by being on a fairly good team and being a reliable captain, not by being a world class 8. If anything he's a good captain with good lineout skills that is otherwise very average for a Tier-1 test 8. I think he could challenge Fardy for the 6 jersey depending on form...

I don't think there would have been much of a contest between Mowen and Higgers for the 8 jersey. Higgers is just on an entirely different level of athleticism than any of our other big backrowers right now (assuming he recovers well from his surgery). I'd say he's in the upper echelon in that...

Phipps + 2 Ls + 1 I - 1 P = Phillips = Mike Phillips = Big Scrum Half = ISRAEL FOLAU CONFIRMED AS SCRUMHALF FOR NSW WARATAHS YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST

Beale used to be the fastest player in the entire Wallaby squad before the injuries and booze. He was easily in the Top 5 fastest players of any Tier 1 nation. He is just stupid fast: Folau definitely lacks the top gear that some very gifted athletes like Beale seem to possess. Doesn't...

Not buying that for a second. Izzy made a load of try saving tackles in the last few tests. He's adapted remarkably quickly to the position.

Beale would be great on the wing playing like Le Roux.

Calling 1-on-1 and 1-on-2 rucking a "dumbed down" version doesn't make any sense as it, by nature, amplifies any errors in technique at the breakdown. No more relying on Fardy and Mowen to move Sekope over the ball, he'd need to do it himself. I'd be more worried about him giving away penalties...

I'm assuming he'll be playing center so he'll have to cut down to around 100kg. He doesn't have the breakdown nous (at least that I've ever seen) to be playing in the forwards. ~100kg would still be a 10-15kg drop for him. It's not even about express pace, just regular 7s pace -- something SBW...

SBW would look very slow on an Olympic 7s field. He also won't be the size of a test 6 if/when he plays 7s. He will have to lose a pretty significant amount of weight just to get his fitness levels to where they need to be.

On paper the Tahs should walk it every season.. I think the hype around them is already getting overblown and we aren't even a month out from the end of the test season. They have an incredibly good team on paper and posted some jaw-dropping attacking stats last year (thanks, Kings) but still...

Oi, that should say 3 and not 6. Betrayed by the mobile keyboard

Last time I checked 6 was more than 2..but who's counting? ;)

You mean pass the mundane shiftiness of the off-season ;)

So are these known unknowns or unknown unknowns we're talking about here?

I think Hunt's got a pretty good step!