He misses 50% of his tackles on smaller blokes, and you think having big blokes running at him is a better option?
He can physically stand up to any other player (he's over 100kg), its his positioning that has him missing a dozen tackles a game...
The thing is, positioning is only an issue when you are on the fringe and have to line up against 5 players spreading it to the wing. In the middle, he would just need to face up to a player running straight (which he has proven he can do).
He added a lot more value than his hit ups on Sunday. He's been good pretty much all year in a severely broken team. How many times has Aku received the ball on his wing this year? It's not his fault our team can't move the ball from left to right without Tariq vacuuming up everything that comes his way (which isn't much). Seriously, how much more can he do that he isn't already doing?
If there's one bloke in our squad that I can safely say has given 100% this year, it's Akuila Uate. I reckon he's just about first picked every week by now. I don't think moving him in field is going to do anyone any good, what we need to do is find ways to get him the ball. When he was at his peak, our entire system was set up to find him space as often as possible. I think we could do a lot worse than revisiting that model at the moment.
At the moment we're a team with a 500k winger, and we can't even get him the ball.
This is what i was saying. He doesnt have Mad Dog feeding him the ball anymore, we have shitty centres who cannot pass to save themselves, and we will have the same centres next week and the week after. The imability to get him the ball on the edge is not going to change...
So we can either leave him out on the edge and lament the lost opportunity he represents, or he can deal with the realty that our team cannot set up a winger and bring him infield to be a weapon somewhere else.
If I were you guys, I'd have Uate at centre running at Naiqama. Uate's first steps are vastly fastly than Naiqama, who likes to rush up and in when defending with the most piss poor timing. A quick centre could get around him and score a few tries (just like the Dogs did against us and the Raiders and...)
Other than that, a good kicking game will be all you need to topple the Tigers.
Uate in the centres is another option (he cant pass for shit, but thats no different from the rest of the team. At least when he holds it, he is dangerous)...
The reason id rather have him in the middle is because he is either leaving soon, so we should be working on establishing the new edge combinations, or he is not, in which case we should be getting our moneys worth from that $.5mil we have sunk into him.
Him in the backrow wouldnt be too different from a fullback chiming in with the attack, except in defence he wont be the liability he could be at fullback....
