Poll : Should the Wallabies revert to the old guard in the front row?

[Running Rugby]

I had to vote yes. While I am a big believer in development I believe it needs to be done in carefully managed stages. We need at least one experienced front rower amongst the starting squad to provide direction and help with the inexperienced props learning.
I also found it interesting RD's decision to play Alexander at loosehead against Fiji. If development was his primary goal surely more playing time at tighthead was essential.

 

[cyclopath]

I fully agree with the principle of blooding youngsters and getting depth, but feel the wholesale "newby" approach sucks balls, to be blunt. I also question the sense of playing people in all sorts of positions - e.g TPN at prorp, Alexander at LHP when it seems his future is at THP, and so on. Would it not be better to have a few good 'uns in each position rather than a bunch of jack of all trade props who can do a bit on each side, but none really well?
So I voted yes - Baxter should be there; Dunning did nothing to suggest the same however.

 

[daz]

After a strong start by the "No" side, the "Yes" campaign is ahead by 17 collapsed scrums to 16 penalty tries.

Would the BaaBaa's game and the appalling sight of TPN playing THP have had anything to do with surge in yes votes?

 

[mark_s]

I voted Yes but No would be equally representative of my views – this probably reflects the near 50:50 result. I think Baxter should be in the squad and I would have him on the bench for this weekend. However I would persist with youth with starting. This is the perfect case of your damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Do you go back to Baxter and criticised by all and sundry when the scrum is wobbly and gets penalised to infinity and beyond? Do you persist with the young bucks, run the risk of ruining them forever but also potentially unearth a star and give him invaluable experience at the same time?

Not an easy decision, particularly as Dean’s preferred front row are all out and one of his preferred replacements (Kepu) is also injured.

For this game, I would probably lean towards Daly and Weeks with Baxter on the bench. As Als not even in the squad, Maafu is probably the closest equivalent. Chisholm to start in place of Mumm will also help. But Noreiga needs to do a lot of work on the binds and body positions across the whole scrum as they seemed very poor in Perth. I also thought our scrum was pretty poor against Fiji (giving the standard of the opposition).

Deans, Williams and Noriega need to reassess after this match though. It may be necessary to have an informal internal trial and give guys like Fairbrother, Henderson, Baxter & Shepherdson a chance to show their wares against the incumbent squad members.

 

[Hawko]

Dunning was poor this S14 and does not deserve a recall. But Baxter was outstanding - he had one bad game (Crusaders) and his work in tight and in the scrum was usually unnoticed by the scribes but he was generally outstanding, and the best Australian S14 prop by a country mile. He deserved his spot but Deans has written him off. Its time some humble pie was eaten.

 

[MajorlyRagerly]

It has to be a yes, if anything, to at least retain the value of test rugby. Baxter is the best man for the job (can't believe I just wrote that), therefore he should be starting.

Deans is obviously not picking him as he has been a penalty magnet of late in the test arena, but he's never given away 2 penalty tries. The current chaps are just simply not up to it, and do you really learn much from getting your head shoved out your own arse?

It's ridiculous & if GH was doing something simliar in NZ, I'd be furious.

 

[Reddy!]

Props take a decent amount of time to develop. It took Baxter 5 years to develop into a decent prop at test level - and what worries me is that now that he is at that level he has been discarded with and we are starting again from scratch. It prompts the question, then, why are we even developing these props when Robbie Deans is just going to drop them for new inexperienced talent that he gets excited about, ultimately creaming his pants? Just a waste in my opinion.

 

[Slim 293]

Props take a decent amount of time to develop. It took Baxter 5 years to develop into a decent prop at test level - and what worries me is that now that he is at that level he has been discarded with and we are starting again from scratch. It prompts the question, then, why are we even developing these props when Robbie Deans is just going to drop them for new inexperienced talent that he gets excited about, ultimately creaming his pants? Just a waste in my opinion.

I guess Deans figures if we're going to have props eat dirt we may as well bring in the young ones and give them some experience...

Baxter scrummages well at a Super 14 level... but let's not forget his last few games for the Wallabies... dreadful...

With our best team fit he probably won't come into contention for the match day 22m...

 

[Lance Free]

I'm a Yes man, too. Use Baxter's experience and start him, but return him to the bench when the others (Alexander/Kepu) return. He's the only tighthead left that's even remotely capable of holding up the scrum (most of the time) against the Poms. The props in the squad are not international class (at this time).

It won't happen of course, so we'll be getting creamed again this weekend. Hopefully it won't be the difference between winning or losing.