Not a fan of what’s been done to the spine but oh well.
While at first glance I thought the same, having thought about it more I'm now with Brown on this one. I'd say he's looking at this game as being won or lost in the forwards (even more so than usual) and without Dan, Glasby, Barnett and now Klemmer we are up against it. 4 starting forwards including 3 Origin players. Guerra also coming back from injury and not named. So we really, really need to find a way to match the Warriors through the middle and Levi's far superior distribution over Watson could be critical. Every little bit counts. Watson has done a great fill-in job there but his service is the weakest part of his game and we need our second stringers getting over the advantage line.
After that, it's just a case of fitting in our best in-form players where possible. Mann has done well at fullback but he's also do a job at centre where he has NRL experience. Perhaps Moga hasn't impressed enough. Watson does offer something at fullback, although his positional play is a worry. And it would be a bit silly to break up Pearce and Lino in the halves straight after Lino had his best game for the club and brought Ramien into the game better than anyone else has managed to. Plus he's our goal kicker.
So to me it's the right line-up and spine for this game. Long term I think Watson goes back to being a #14 and doing a great job as an impact dummy half / cover for injuries and HIA, with Mann and Lino fighting it out for the starting #6, which Mann probably still has rights to for now.
