I can see the argument for experience but Staines is a must. Our backline has been unbalanced for too long with no one who is genuinely fast. Sauce might still have a few good years but the current arrangement is so much better for us, Souths and Mansour.
A lot of people have been touching on the experience factor going into season 2021 but I just want to raise a few points to counteract that which I don’t think has been spoken enough about.
1. The hunger and drive that our team will have to go one better next season and win the big one. These players won’t just forget about how last season played out, they will want to amend what I’m sure they feel like was a royal stuff up - this is where I think the youth can play a factor, it really shouldn’t be hard to use the end of last season as motivation to keep these boys firing.
2. The bond that some of our players have is something you very rarely see in a sporting team (especially the Mt Druitt connection but even the team as a whole). These boys look like they would die for each other, and I’m saying that quite literally lol it would be so hard to juggle various different levels of ego in a sporting organisation but that part of it really doesn’t seem to be an issue that we look close to having.
Experience is important too, but we plenty of experience throughout the squad. Enough to sacrifice some players to keep others that look like they could be something very special.