That all matches what I’ve seen too.
The thing on Host though - I remember when that came up, it was just one poster who said that, and not a poster with a record of credibility. Then a few others repeated it based on that. So I’m disinclined to put much stock in that.
To me it looked like he started behind Luc in line for firsts, then got injured. By the time he recovered, gained match fitness he got picked again but the game plan had changed so that both our edges were playing close to 80. I certainly hope he gets time over the origin period. Should just replace Frizz this round ideally, but more likely Mary picks Frizz and plays him for 50-60 and host gets 20-30.
Damo I tend to agree with your assumptions on Host. At this point in time there is no evidence to suggest that Host is being treated any better or worse than any of the other youngsters. He has been injured a couple of times already throughout this season so he has had a disrupted season to date.
The initial statement suggested he was not going to be considered in Mary’s top 21 – I would suggest that has been disproven given he’s been named in the 21 and has made it onto the bench.
I also assume that initially Luciano was preferred as the next in line given the couple of chances he has had on the bench and the extended game time (at least in comparison to the others on the bench) he has played. I think though that LL has proven he still needs work.
All of these guys are training with the NRL team and are familiar with the same structures, defence etc. So there should be no excuse for them not to be killing it at the ISP level. I haven’t watched many ISP games but if I am to go by the comments of the posters in here, it would seem that they are up and down week by week. Sounds like they still have some way to go to be consistent enough to be stepping up to the big time.
