Look, you're probably right Molman, but I was just totally pissed off with the complete capitulation on Friday night. When the Chiefs came out and put on two quick tries after the break, the heads dropped, the attitude turned to shit and most of them just went through the motions. And that really comes back to the senior players, who are supposed to be the guys lifting the young blokes, but in fact were the worst culprits. Beale, Hunt, Dempsey all had a pretty good first half, but were the first to toss it in. One thing that gets up my nose is people blessed with the talent to play our great game at the top level for a living seemingly caring less than a Subbies second grader.
Apart from the four I mentioned, I agree Ramm has been a good find, and I thought Short, while not offering Gordon's running game, was much quicker to the breakdown, and passed well. No comment on Taffa, Tizzano and Walton, need to see how they react to the higher level. However, I think neither Staniforth nor McCauley offer much at all (and Simmons only marginally better), while in the back row Dempsey and Swinton do a few good things, but certainly don't give us 80 minutes of quality, and Holloway is really no better than the day he debuted.
It'll be good to get Hanigan back, you get genuine passion there, and as some have said above, may not be a lot to lose by giving the likes of Tafa, Harris and Tizzano a crack.
The other area we aren't getting much value is in the centres. Hunt plays about 40 minutes of decent footy a week, and Newsome has been totally anonymous. Not sure where we look for changes there, but I guess Moeroa could be a start.
As mentioned earlier, the other thing we need is inspiring leadership, the sort of stuff that will lift a team when they've just had two tries put on them in quick succession, and I don't see that coming from Simmons or Beale. Assuming no means no for Hooper, I don't know who provides that. Maybe Hanigan when he comes back???
