I'm not saying he is not accountable by any means.
I'm merely saying that Blair is blown out to be a great player when I see many many things in his game that need work...and plenty of it.
Does he have aggression...yes
Does he have an offload...yes
Can he hit hard...yes
But his kicking game is extremely inconsistent...i.e. one week great, one week terrible.
His defensive awareness is pathetic...rushing out of the line, or staying back when others move up.
He is a lazy defender and rarely chases.
He offloads at the incorrect times, and i'd say approximately 50% of all offloads from Blair hit the ground before reaching the man.
He has poor passing awareness and a poor bullet pass.
These are just off the top of my head.
Nathan Smith...while tenacious for example...has nothing going for him aside his appeal with the ladies and a work ethic.
If you watch Nathan Smith closely...his stats may say 39 tackles...but from watching the game again you'll see the following:
39 tackles:
13 are third man in, 12 when the ball player was wrapped up, the last he didn't wrap up the ball and let the offload go.
18 are second man in, 13 when the ball player was already wrapped up.
the remaining 8 tackles, he was first man in with contact...7 times out of the 8, he was driven backwards until someone else came and helped him.
He also missed 6 elementary tackles, 4 trying to go high on the ball runner, 2 trying to go low. 2 of these missed tackles led to tries, 1 led to a massive line break.
This is why I don't rate Nathan Smith. Everyone says he gets through a ton of work...but he is the biggest flop artist in the game. He lacks impact and lacks talent at this level. That pass he threw to David Williams...was just embarassing. And it isn't the first time he's done it either.
