Agree with most that it's probably win/win/win/win and let us not forget the availability of McKibbin for the Reds and Sua for the Tahs. They are both fine players and I rate them higher than Stannard. Others will disagree and that's fine.
It is a great pity that Genia got himself suspended for 4 weeks and is currently injured. Otherwise he could have shown enough to be a smokey for 3rd string scrummie in the Wallaby squad.
There is no reason not to believe Friend when he said he preferred Phibbs above Holmes; neither is there a reason to disbelieve the NSW alickadoo when he said they were after Holmes, not Phibbs. Different strokes.
The time is running out for Holmes. He is not the young gun with all the talents anymore. With Holmes, the Tahs coaching staff should have him doing drills to help him release the ball early. A couple of months should do it.
If clearance from a ruck or scrum was an element in American Football and Holmes was a player, an NFL assistant coach would have the stopwatch on him at training, week after week. They would make sure his right foot was opposite the ball early when passing left; they would have a daily log of accuracy stats relating to meeting the target with the pass - both ways; they would have him trained in standup passing and they would have him doing 20 other different skills pertinent to his job.
And if his pass to the left was better they would spend 80% of his skills training passing to the right. They would have him do everything with his left hand when one hand could be used and fine him if he was caught doing stuff with his right hand.
I have watched the Tahs train on many occasions and have never seen anything like this; nor backs practice passing to their bad side.
It's not rocket science, but I digress.
