Forty20
First Grade
- Messages
- 7,677
Kelepi was picked in first-grade by Brad Arthur for the first three rounds despite coming off an heavily disrupted off-season so it would seem that the coaching staff have a fair amount of faith in him.
He is carving up the NYC in the frontrow, playing big minutes with an excellent rate of involvement. As for his move to prop, I'm curious to know how much of it was brought about by the need for more grunt in the engine room for our 20s. Kelepi played his first NYC game this year on the edges (Rd.4) but was then pushed into middle to help cover what is essentially the only weakness of our 2014 NYC roster - our prop rotation.
It has become apparent that Brad Arthur communicates clearly to all first-grade prospects what they need to work on in order to claim a spot in our first seventeen (see Chris Sandow and now the Junior Paulo article I posted today) so there is little doubt the Kelepi has his own benchmarks to meet and I think he must be close to them.
As it is our NYC team needs Kelepi. Although we have some superb talent in the backrow he is without a doubt the leader of our pack and whenever he is absent from the playing field it is very noticeable. Whatever other reasons there are for slotting Kelepi into the frontrow, the move has forced him to get involved in every possible set and his sway over the team is similar to the one that Junior Paulo held over our NSW Cup team through 2013 and this year.
He is carving up the NYC in the frontrow, playing big minutes with an excellent rate of involvement. As for his move to prop, I'm curious to know how much of it was brought about by the need for more grunt in the engine room for our 20s. Kelepi played his first NYC game this year on the edges (Rd.4) but was then pushed into middle to help cover what is essentially the only weakness of our 2014 NYC roster - our prop rotation.
It has become apparent that Brad Arthur communicates clearly to all first-grade prospects what they need to work on in order to claim a spot in our first seventeen (see Chris Sandow and now the Junior Paulo article I posted today) so there is little doubt the Kelepi has his own benchmarks to meet and I think he must be close to them.
As it is our NYC team needs Kelepi. Although we have some superb talent in the backrow he is without a doubt the leader of our pack and whenever he is absent from the playing field it is very noticeable. Whatever other reasons there are for slotting Kelepi into the frontrow, the move has forced him to get involved in every possible set and his sway over the team is similar to the one that Junior Paulo held over our NSW Cup team through 2013 and this year.
