Rocky road ahead for Rocky...........

[qwerty51]

Samo is lanky? Have you seen him up close?

Ok lanky was probably not the right word, he's not thin but he's tall, he has more of a lock's body that' not very good for straight up running.

 

[Bullrush]

Ok lanky was probably not the right word, he's not thin but he's tall, he has more of a lock's body that' not very good for straight up running.

My cousin was on a flight from Canberra to Brisbane this year and saw him there.....he's a pretty good rugby player himself and he said Samo was MASSIVE....

 

[Ruggo]

Shook his hand earlier this year. That big mit nearly crushed my little one. He is a big lad.

 

[RugbyReg]

Samo has to be the guy.

He has played in the second row in tests and was probably Australias best performed 8 in this years Super comp.
I'm sure he would not have a problem packing down at 6 if needed(which would be rarely looking at the rest of the squad).
You would have to pick Samo over Mumm every time.

Samo is the ideal bench utility with the ability to impact a test at any given point.

don't think he has. Didn't he play exclusively as a 6 for the Wallabies?

 

[DPK]

I can hear his footsteps walking around, and he's in South Africa.

To quote Gus Gould, he is the world's biggest human being.

 

[Joe Blow]

don't think he has. Didn't he play exclusively as a 6 for the Wallabies?

Maybe, but he certainly played most of his rugby as a 4 back then.

 

[ChargerWA]

I think the Wallabies biggest problems are mental, that's why I advocate picking as many Reds players who are arguably best in their position for this RWC. They are the only Australian team in the last 8 years to be able to gain any sort of parity or even dominance over a Kiwi or Saffa opposition.

If this rationale is good enough for Simmons to displace Sharpe, then Higgers has to displace Rocky and Samo has to displace McCalman.

I could use the same rationale for A Finger in for McCabe as well.

 

[Ash]

I do believe that Reg is right, Eddie Jones in his madness only tried Samo as a flanker. We were still searching for a new blindside flanker back then, as there had been no obvious selections since the retirements of Cockbain, then Finegan (or perhaps Finegan was on his last legs and had injury problems...).

 

[Groucho]

I've mentioned this before but against SA and NZ, Palu's average rating from this site is 5.5.

My point exactly. In the same games he's usually in the players' top three.

It's like Thomond's analysis of the scrums. What fans think goes on, and what actually goes on, are often very different things.

 

[Groucho]

I can hear his footsteps walking around, and he's in South Africa.

To quote Gus Gould, he is the world's biggest human being.

With the right equipment, his local gravity field can be used to prove general relativity.

 

[Waylon]

Did you even watch the game? Did you look at the stats?

The bloke got through the second highest amount of work of our forward pack. You are talking shit.

I did watch the game as a matter of fact. I saw him standing on the wing a lot and making ineffective runs on the rare occasion he came in close and he did a lot of jersey pulling instead of smashing people. The bloke is past it and is wearing someone elses jersey. Time for the hook

 

[Waylon]

Samo is massive, mobile and hits like a sledge hammer. The bloke is in form

Samo to 8

Higgers to 6

Up the impact and pain and fear factors

Rooky can play left right out with Gits

If you want to win, pick blokes who are in form not based on what they were doing 2 years ago

 

[RedsHappy]

....It's like Thomond's analysis of the scrums. What fans think goes on, and what actually goes on, are often very different things.

We fans know nothing Groucho. We just pay the bills.

 

[Gnostic]

Comparing to one of our better balanced backrows of the professional era:

6 Cockbain - your mongrel man, high workrate in tight and lineout option
7 Wilson - your fetcher
8 Kefu - bending the line and throw in silky skills

Kefu was the widest ranging player of these three, but you wouldn't see him much past inside centre. Cockbain and Wilson would have been lucky to get 5m from the ruck. For me the natural equivalents to these guys are:

Cockbain - McCalman (Elsom doesn't play tight enough), Dennis another option as Cutter mentions
Wilson - Pocock
Kefu - Samo

Earlier this year I hypothesized that with the changing breakdown laws we would be better forgetting the "on baller" and going for a counter ruck type backrow (I think Pocock could do this with a mindset change). This would change the whole backrow dynamic and instead of the sorts of players we see now we would instead have Samo, Vae, Mowen types at 8, Elsom,Dennis at 6 Higginbum,Dennis,Mowen,Pocock at 7.

A move back to the dynamic of the 91 RWC backrow of Poido, Willie O and Gavin

 

[Bowside]

The best thing about samo is his superb positional play and combination with genia, especially from the back of the scrum. He's not an 80 minute player, but he sure can be good for about 50.

In any case I dont think samo is going to magically come back and dominate at test level, but he might just do enough and at this point with the players we have I think that is the best we can hope for.

 

[Groucho]

We fans know nothing Groucho. We just pay the bills.

I'm a fan too. If people disagree with my assessment, then by definition I consider them to be wrong.

But more seriously, I'm not doing a Matt Burke and saying fans don't know anything. I'm merely proposing some limits on what we can see. Impact in the tight is notoriously hard to spot from a distance. If the players see X in the tight encounters, and the fans see Y, then I tend to go with X. Take Austin's excellent analysis of Rob Simmons' breakdown play in the last test as an example - few of us saw it that way until we were shown. I certainly didn't.

But, of course, how people interpret X and Y is fair game.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

Earlier this year I hypothesized that with the changing breakdown laws we would be better forgetting the "on baller" and going for a counter ruck type backrow (I think Pocock could do this with a mindset change). This would change the whole backrow dynamic and instead of the sorts of players we see now we would instead have Samo, Vae, Mowen types at 8, Elsom,Dennis at 6 Higginbum,Dennis,Mowen,Pocock at 7.

A move back to the dynamic of the 91 RWC backrow of Poido, Willie O and Gavin

Regardless of the rules, I think Pocock would be there. He's one of the world's best back rowers. This is not me disagreeing with you, BTW, just saying that there would still be a place for someone of his shape and size.

That RWC 1991 back row (which didn't feature Tim Gavin, unfortunately) of Willie O, Poido and Coker was the very definition of mongrel. I still think that Poido is the greatest back rower to ever play for Australia, at least in my life time.

 

[cyclopath]

I think the ABs have the perfect template at the moment. McCaw, Read, Kaino, Thompson are all kind of good at it all. All can pilfer, all are good ball players and link men, and aggressive counter-ruckers.

 

[Richo]

I think the ABs have the perfect template at the moment. McCaw, Read, Kaino, Thompson are all kind of good at it all. All can pilfer, all are good ball players and link men, and aggressive counter-ruckers.

Now if we could just clone Pocock...

 

[vidiot]

Earlier this year I hypothesized that with the changing breakdown laws we would be better forgetting the "on baller"

It was super rugby, but the reds tried to play without a strong fetcher in super rugby couple of times and fell over badly.

It's not so much that players like Pocock, Robinson, Waugh et al are going to win you as much ball this year so much as (if they can find the balance in the ref's eyes) they can hassle the opposition's ball enough to break up their flow. Finding that balance has been especially hard for Pocock. I don't know how Robinson got away with so much, he always seemed more obvious in infringing.