I’m genuinely not sure how we best fit everyone into the team moving forward.
We can’t carry Mann, Crossland and Gamble. Too many small blokes and cooks in the kitchen. We need to sign a proper hooker desperately, but from what we have for next week my preference would be to play Mann at #9 and Gamble on the bench or lock without Crossland anywhere in sight, but then what happens if Mann gets injured or needs a break? Can anyone else play hooker?
I definitely think we had a good balance with the Miller/Gamble/Hastings combo, but also realistically against the top teams we’re probably going to need more strike power in the halves and running game. That’s where KP fits the bill brilliantly but not sure where he best fits in. Gamble worked well for us at 6 as he was a simple link man so things didn’t get over complicated. Ideally we find a way to keep the same structures in place but utilise KP to make us even better, but I’m not sure if it’s possible to recreate that with Ponga without severely limiting his impact.
Would love to have Gamble developed into a bit of a ball playing lock and link man but I feel like he’s too small and we would have way too many cooks in the kitchen for each play, especially considering our halves link up on both sides of the field.
Im really not sure what the answer is. We need Ponga’s skills in the team but I’m not sure how we best use him to the benefit of the side. The easy answer is to move him back to fullback but I’m not sure if continuously moving him is the best thing for him, and Miller does offer something (errors aside) and can’t see us dropping him.
I guess this is all redundant anyway unless we sign a new #9. I don’t think it really matters what we do with the rest of the squad if we don’t get it right at dummy half.