I agree on pretty well everything except I thought Blair has improved 100% on last year. He attracts 3 to 4 to tackle him and is pretty quick at playing the ball. I'm pretty happy with him so far this year.
I'd like to see Anasta given more duties when it comes to kicking for field position and field goals just to keep the opposition guessing. I reckon in time he will set up a few tries giving us more options in attack.
I don't know how long it takes for someone to fully recover from an injury like Lawrence's but I'm hoping we see improvement over the next month or so and he is back to his best before the finals.
Yeah that is true what you are saying about Blair. He's definitely valuable but he just doesn't run with enough aggression. He needs to have a few beers before the game, get himself all angry and ready to hit some merkins.
I think the issue with Lawrence is that he's just too injury prone to be as good as he used to be. I understand Anasta's value with his kicking game and experience, but in this day and age your back row needs to be big enough to make some impact. BMM and Pettyborne can both do this whereas Anasta just doesn't seem to offer anything we need IMO (hope I am proved wrong).
One thing I can't help thinking is what would happen if Potter was able to do a massive cut next year regardless of contracts. e.g. imagine if he cut Anasta, Lawrence, Moltzen, Blair, Utai, Tiquiri. The salary cap space would be enormous and we could buy a formidable forward pack. No more news stories about how weak our defense is, we would actually strike fear into other teams. We have quality backs but they need to gain more experience....which would come more easily if we had a brutal, bone crunching pack.
