Banks; Clear head, reasonably calm, involved in the play-making, makes good decisions (so far) and has a good overview of the proceedings @15.
Joe and Slipper as deputies;
Joe as it will help his developments and he is right there next to the ref as required.
Slipper is the old wise head and mentor. The master can guide the Padawan's and help bring the calm to close out the games.
A Banks / Joe leadership will also help guide our new 10's who will need guidance and reassurance.
McKellar named a leadership squad of:
I expect Cusack will be named the captain. He's also replaced Lealiifano on the UC advertising board, if that means anything.
- Tom Cusack;
- Andy Muirhead;
- Tom Banks;
- Irae Simone;
- Joe Powell; and,
- Pete Samu.
We've seen success with the South African style backrow before (e.g. 2014, 2017), and I can see us succeeding with a backrow of McCaffrey, Samu, Valetini. I'd honestly prefer McCaffrey on the field as well, we really benefit from having that Fardy-esque no-nonsense workhorse.
McCaffery is a jet & should be a Wallaby.
really? That's the list? I would have though Cusack is the least likely of those to be in the starting team.
I would have thought one of the props, but acknowledge that it's hard work carrying your team up front, both physically and mentally.
Gee of that lot, it's probably Samu isn't it?
Andy Muirhead has also struggled to get starting gigs in recent years - not sure this year would be any different
just poor website work. They've also got players listed who aren't in the squad.
Here's the squad they released last year.
https://brumbies.rugby/news/2019/11/03/brumbies-finalise-2020-squad
Source: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sp...d/news-story/2716d36a00e823da52aed4f4cff8b42eThe Brumbies have been training for the past week in Newcastle to escape the smoke-laden air in the national capital but are set to return to Canberra on Wednesday to complete their build-up.
McKellar was unapologetic in insisting that the Brumbies would not be changing their game and would continue to exploit their driving maul, which last year earned them 16 of their 65 tries.
.........
"We take pride that we had zero [rolling maul tries] scored against us last season," said McKellar. "We focus on it in training and we put as much emphasis on our maul defence as we do on our maul attack."
.........
"But the 23 for round one is far from finalised." [McKellar said].