Just watched the game again. A few comments:
Quality was better than I remembered, there were dropped balls but the game was fucking fast and physical.
I think JOC (James O'Connor) played pretty well. I remember him being average, and most people here have put the boot into him here and elsewhere. But I am going to swim against the tide. I thought he was a big improvement on Brisbane.
He didn't do anything particularly memorable, but he didn't need to. His distribution was crisp, and his defece solid. His kicking game was very god, and he had a couple of good runs (which IMO were the right option almost every time).
I reckon he made only two errors all night. A knock-on in the first half, and the out on the full kick in the last minutes.
I'd keep him at 10 in Sydney, and going forward. I thought our backline played bloody well all things considered, and if we can keep it fit and firing we will take apart plenty of sides. Lilo was a very nice addition.
As for the pigs, plenty of 'solid, but not outstanding' games. Mowen had some nice moments but gave away a few costly penalties (including the last one). Benny Robbo and Kev played a solid 80, but Hooper got through a tonne of work so gets my 'best forward' award.
Genia, Folau and AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) immense in the backs. All World XV players at the moment.
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JOC (James O'Connor) was certainly better but still a long way from what our top flyhalves would offer. His clearing kicking was great, his defense satisfactory. Two QC (Quade Cooper) like errors though (glossed over by the QC (Quade Cooper) hate brigade).
For mine any of To'omua, Cooper, Foley or Lilo would have been better - and therein lies the point of most detractors - these four have all proven themselves better 10s at super level, whereas JOC (James O'Connor) has been average at best and is third choice for his Rebels team.
It isn't a matter of him being horrible it is that there are more proven options.
You could almost believe that Deans has the same opinion. JOC (James O'Connor) has been picked as a low mistake (hmmmm), good tackling and kicking option at 10, but he only plays first receiver about 50% of the time. He has has picked Beale and Lilo to also spend time at first receiver despite being rather critical of the Reds system of using Cooper at 15 in defense and 10 in attack.
So does Deans really think that JOC (James O'Connor) is the best 10 in this country?
My opinion is that he is doing a disservice to JOC (James O'Connor) by a) not using him in his most effective position and b) picking him at 10 then shifting him in and out of that spot on the field.
Further he is doing a disservice to our backline by not having the same player in the 10 position at least 90% of the time and he is making Genia's job much harder by giving him multiple different backline 'generals' to work with.
