He plays primarily as a middle forward, but don't confuse this for playing as an effective big boppa. He even said it himself on the footy show this morning that even though he reckons he can handle the prop role, NSW are better off with a bigger body in the middle. And that's it. You need big bodies who can bend the line and also make the heavy contact against the opposition big boppas in defence at prop. Folks need to understand how fatiguing continuous body contact throughout a game is and props cop the most. To be effective in the position, they should play 45-50 mins tops which is why a 4 man fair dinkum prop rotation is essential. That's why QLD eventually win the arm wrestle in the middle of the ground because they rotated big men like Petero, Scott, Hannant & Shillo through here, kept them fresher and effective, and they get on top of Gallen who played 80 mins as a small prop.
Gallen is a good stat padder, not a front line prop forward. Run him on in #13 as the smaller forward in the middle with Farah. Get him off for 15-20 mins and bring Watmong on to maintain the freshness and intensity here. Watmong can also get added game time by replacing Bird on the left edge for another 15-20 mins.
When selected at #13, Gallen needs to realise that he's behind the two props on the field at any time in the hit up hierarchy and not the main go to man every set or even 2 times a set as he has imposed himself in Origins in the past. NSW props have largely been ineffective in recent years because they don't get enough time on field in games, and when they're on the field, they can't get enough ball because Gallen is the one in the middle always demanding the ball.
A prop rotation looking something like Tamou, Grant, Fifita, Woods should be in the squad. The smaller mobile forwards should look along lines of Gallen & Watmough to rotate the middle, Bird & Watmough again to rotate the left edge, and Lewis & T Sims/Hoffman to rotate the right edge.
There has to be smart use of the interchange and rotations to maintain fresh bodies. Stuart (or was it Bozo demanding) totally f**ked this up with unnecessary selections such as Buhrer who was used for several minutes, keeping guys like Gallen and Bird on the field all game and not giving other guys like Tamou, Grant and Merrin decent game time, and selecting smaller bodies or guys who aren't props in the prop role like Watmough and Creagh.
17 men will win the game. not just the 13 that run on. essential to this is a real 4 man prop rotation in an overall 10-man (6 run on inc Farah + 4 interchange) forward unit.
