FFS. If Cartwright starts at 5/8th we are stuck with Moylan at fullback and TMM will never see first grade again under Griffin unless Cartwright is injured. We desperately need a coach who can see that Moylan, TMM and Cleary do not all work in the halves together.
I think our squad should be broken down like this:
Fullback - Edwards, DWZ, Moylan
Wingers - Mansour, DWZ, Edwards, Blake, Hiku MKZ
Centres - Blake, Whare, Peachey, Hiku
5/8th - Moylan, TMM, Cartwright
Half - Cleary, TMM, Wallace
Hooker - Wallace, TMM, Peachey, Katoa (a lot of learning and hard work is required for TMM and Peachey, but probably less than Katoa becoming an NRL hooker)
Prop - RCG, Tamou, Latu, Akauolo, Kikau, Leota, Browne
Second Row/Lock - Merrin, Cartwright, Yeo, JFH, CHN, Peachey
Utilities: TMM, Peachey, CHN
Bench:
2x props
1x second rower
1x utility or another forward
TMM at the moment has only ever been viewed as a half. But something needs to change with Moylan and TMM. Moylan at fullback is only effective in a 5/8th role. That means we have both Moylan and TMM sharing the same role essentially and it is holding both players and the team back
These guys clash and I only see a long term success for us if we get rid of one of them completely, or if we attempt to move TMM to hooker/utility and have him offer something else to the team. Moylan at fullback is not a good option IMO... many fans have believed that for a long time but it seems like every week more of them are coming around. Everyone except the coach has viewed his future as a half.
Moylan seems to be getting worse in his fullback duties each week if you judged him on this year alone he wouldn't really rate too highly at all. Barely above Will Smith. I say that as a massive fan of Matt Moylan. I think at half he could become the best playmaker in the game within 2 years. Especially considering the only players better than him now are likely to be retired.
At fullback though he is always going to have a bunch of areas he doesn't stack up in and the second we have an injured winger or two we will again be reminded just how much we are missing in not having a stronger ball runner at the back. Mansour and DWZ helped hide that flaw in his game, remove even one of them and you see just what we are missing.
