Ok, I'll bite...
Why would I want one of our best, and sole backline test representative out injured?
Particularly when we have essentially a new team, and our best combinations preferably sorted sooner rather than later?
Why would I want our potential 13 or 12 not to have the training time honing and improving his skills?
As for him strangling the Wallaby attack... There were other players in the field too...
Based on his world cup perfoances, we could say Genia strangles our attack with all the kicking... But we shouldnt let a few performances at the RWC be a definitive indicator of a players worth...
But is he?
This is the thing. If rugby was like NFL, and we could pause the play and run on the defence, he'd be the first Wallaby, let alone Brumby, I picked, followed by Pocock and then Fainga'a (x 2)
But its not. People talk about metres gained, but where were those metres gained? He took a lot of returns from fullback....so if there was no one within 25m of him (quite likely at the back) and he ran it back, there's 25m. But that doesn't mean they were effective. It may have been a better option to kick it.
Or, more likely, draw and pass it on to someone like Lealiifano or Coleman, who have the pace, and elusiveness to not just get it back to the defending line, but actually break through that line, OR put someone else through a gap, and actually counter-attack.
Yes we could argue that other players were not up to their best (Cooper/Genia), or that there was not even a semblence of a gameplan for them to play to, but playing McCabe at 12 buggered our attack. He hardly passed, and was not effective enough in contact to actually BE a decent crash baller. Its one thing to attempt to break every bone in your body on someone elses shoulder, its a completely different thing to run hard AND intelligently, eg into the SPACE between two men, or at the inside shoulder of a rapidly moving cover defender, so that they're unbalanced in the contact, rather than the OUTside shoulder, with which they're directing all their force.
I'm not happy he's injured, its a great shame, and i'm pissed off at Robbie Deans for (among countless other things) playing him after he was clearly in a bad, bad way, when it would have made far more sense to....I dunno...play someone else...who isn't a rookie in that position?
For the Brumbies though, it means that we have a lot of rookies, who will then be looked at in their respective positions. Plus, JW wont be tempted or pressured into playing McCabe at 12 by Deans, and hamstringing our own potentially excellent attacking structure.
He's a fantastic defender, and has huge balls, but unless he learns to be more of a link man (like Fainga'a has done over the last few years) and do just enough to give a platform for more naturally gifted attackers, OR he becomes more intelligent with his crash balls, and starts making metres from them, then he doesn't warrant a position for the Brumbies, let alone the Wallabies, however harsh that sounds. I'm a huge fan of aggressive defence, but not at the total cost of attacking/counter-attacking backline play.
