'14 // CvC // Sun // Country 26-26 City // Dubbo

[Son of Minto]

Congrats to David "I want to play for Qld" Mead.

New South Fails.

 

[nick87]

I love that after bitching to high heaven that Fensom isn't included... he's now suggesting Fensom not play.

Class, Nick. Love it.

When you have guys like Frizell and Rochow selected in front of you, then you get a sense of where you are in the pecking order.
Why should Fensom risk injury when he is considered the 20th best back rower in the state by those selecting SOO teams?

He isnt going to play SOO football. He isn't even on the f**king radar of CvC until every other bum named before him pulled out with bruised knees. So why should he bust his arse as 18th man for these idiots?

He should have been the starting lock for country. Almost every fan, to a man, agrees with this. He is disrespected by this tokenism and should promptly tell them it isn't worth it busting his tail and risking injury for them under these circumstances

 

[Dutchy]

CvC is my fave game of the season. I love Country winning and want the best players on the field. I wouldn't pick Fensom.

 

[Spot On]

To those whinging about players being ruled out of the rep team and miraculously recovering you do realise that the coach of the rep teams usually requires the player to be available for training at the beginning of the week to get combinations sorted, where as the players club will usually give the player until game day (or at least a day or 2 before hand) to prove his fitness.

Yes, but if blokes are still pulling out today (and tomorrow) then it's not really the beginning of the week anymore is it. New blokes come in and you still don't have much time to train and get combos started. They should be ready to go day 1. Doc has a look and clears them, off you go.

 

[nick87]

Dutchy. If you honestly think the guys like Frizell, Rochow, Jackson, Finucane and Docker are better footballers than Shaun Fensom, then you need to forward your resume to NSWRL, because you are uniquely qualified to help NSW achieve their dreams of losing 20 in a row.

 

[MrAnonymous]

Rest eay Raiders fans, Fensom is now 18th man...

Still don't know why he doesn't start in front of Docker

Because Docker is a better player, pretty simple.

 

[Noname36]

When you have guys like Frizell and Rochow selected in front of you, then you get a sense of where you are in the pecking order.
Why should Fensom risk injury when he is considered the 20th best back rower in the state by those selecting SOO teams?

He isnt going to play SOO football. He isn't even on the f**king radar of CvC until every other bum named before him pulled out with bruised knees. So why should he bust his arse as 18th man for these idiots?

He should have been the starting lock for country. Almost every fan, to a man, agrees with this. He is disrespected by this tokenism and should promptly tell them it isn't worth it busting his tail and risking injury for them under these circumstances

I probably would have picked him too but this is a huge overreaction. Every year in every rep team there's always blokes that don't get selected despite a lot of people thinking they should. If he never plays SOO he never players SOO. I'm sure there's been a lot of players better than Fensom that have played their whole careers without ever getting a blue jersey.

 

[Packy]

More interested in this than the test match.

 

[Swarzey]

He should have been the starting lock for country. Almost every fan, to a man, agrees with this. He is disrespected by this tokenism and should promptly tell them it isn't worth it busting his tail and risking injury for them under these circumstances

Well...aren't you one hell of a hypocrite?

See, it's easy to stand out in a shit team.

 

[ek999]

Because Docker is a better player, pretty simple.

I just like Fensom for some reason. But I f the selectors don't see him as the best starting lock then I agree with them not picking him. He isn't someone I would want coming off the bench

 

[Vic Mackey]

Whilst I do agree fensom should be in the country side, it's Alan tongue all over again with the raiders fans. Every club fan base has the unfashionable guy who tries his heart out that you love to death and severely over rate. For years and years we heard how tongue should be playing for nsw despite everyone else knowing he was complete dogshit.

Fensom isn't dogshit, but he is really just an average first grader. He isn't a Greg bird or Luke Lewis, I wouldn't be having him at origin.

 

[nick87]

No one is saying he should be a lock for origin footy. Just that he is better than half the back rowers named in the so called trial for soo.

He probably won't ever play origin footy, that's fine. Loads of good players don't. But if you are calling CITYV COUNTRY a SOO trail game, why pick guys who are clearly not as good as fensom?
It's either a genuine trial and Fensom should be there vying for consideration like the rest of the potentials, or it's not and you might as well stop calling it a SOO trial.

And then to pick him at this point of proceedings... I'm sure he loves it and would jump at the chance to play but if it were me, I'm not risking injury for this game when he's clearly not on the radar for Soo selection.

Again, I'm not saying he should be a SOO footballer, but I am saying he has earned the chance to put his case forward in an 'origin trial' over some of the hacks selected in front of him. But since the selectors clearly don't value him, why should he risk injury for a mikey mouse game like this.

 

[nick87]

Basically what I'm saying is he deserves to be given the chance to show what he has got. He is hands down a better player than at 5 players selected in front of him. If NSW saw this as a genuine trial to assess how players might cope with a step up, there is no justification for not picking someone like him, least of all when you've got guys like Frizell, Docker, Rochow, Finucane and Jackson playing. But if the selectors don't value him, and clearly they don't given what we've seen, which is fine btw, they've only lost 8 in a row so no need to consider a change of philosophy, then just call him, tell him he is out and don't even consider him for this fixture.

 

[Pete Cash]

Whilst I do agree fensom should be in the country side, it's Alan tongue all over again with the raiders fans. Every club fan base has the unfashionable guy who tries his heart out that you love to death and severely over rate. For years and years we heard how tongue should be playing for nsw despite everyone else knowing he was complete dogshit.

Fensom isn't dogshit, but he is really just an average first grader. He isn't a Greg bird or Luke Lewis, I wouldn't be having him at origin.

Fensom is a lot better than Tongue in fairness.

According to NRL.com he has made 827m from 7 games this year. Alan Tongue was never doing that in attack. That is more than every Raiders forward besides Paul Vaughan (who is obviously a potential future nsw player). That is on top of the work he does in defence with 324 tackles.

I mean purely on a statistical level he is averaging 118m a game along with 46 tackles. That is an insane amount of work. He is in a whole different league to Alan Tongue. It is also far beyond what the average NRL forward produces imo.

 

[VictorTheViking]

Docker and Frizell I could make cases for...the rest of them not so much

 

[MacDougall]

Would have Fensom ahead of all of them.

 

[Dutchy]

118m of quantity over quality. Can't bend the line.

 

[MacDougall]

Bullshit Fensom has run the ball well this year. Made good inroads.

 

[Pete Cash]

Come on don't be silly if a guy is averaging over 100m a game they are doing a pretty good job somewhere but according to NRL stats he has made 69 hit ups this year. Now not ARM count as a hitup iirc but he is a middle third player doing the hard yards so the vast majority of his metres would be from hit ups no. That is almost an average of 12m a carry ?

The guy is a good player. Stop being a silly billy. Sometimes you need a workhorse and he is about as good a workhorse as exists imo for what he brings. Had a poor game against Manly mind but so did the entire squad.

 

[Pete Cash]

I mean the guy isn't perfect he gives away A LOT of penalties and has the odd absolutely mental error in his game but they selected Josh McCrone who not only is an error making machine all his errors are absolute game turners. He just has a knack for a bad kick that will lead to a game turning try. Don't know how he does it.

I think in many ways Fensom is a victim of the Raiders with penalties anyway. He is the only Raiders player who can compete in the ruck so he stands out like a sore thumb in games. I doubt he holds down as much as some of the better wrestlers in the game its just he is the only guy doing it for the Raiders AT ALL.

As an aside I can understand why other fans would think oh yeah Fensom its Alan Tongue all over again because Raiders supporters did push really hard for him to pick up rep honours but Fensom is a million times the player that Tongue was.