Staines is taller and heavier than Papenhuyzen. Why doesn’t this get mentioned? Pap would have similar defensive, and metre gain issues to Charlie if he was plonked out on the wing.
But Bellamy is much smarter than that, our coach….isn’t.
I am honestly not a huge fan of the outside back hit up strategy of Ivan. He overcooks it in my opinion. There are multiple sets that we have where our outside backs take the 1st 4 hit ups. They often end up being sub 30m sets. I don’t see any other club go to this extreme as much as we do. I don’t mind the 1st two, sometimes 3.
What is worst is that they are often predictable. You can tell before the ball is played who will get it. I am sure that the opposition often does as well and the poor player gets smashed.
I absolutely love Brian To’o but if we line him up to get smashed 20 times a game as a human pinball, we have to be prepared for him to have a dramatically shortened career. He is still very young with fast recovery and hasn’t accrued huge NRL mileage yet.
But as he gets older the mileage will take it’s toll on him, he will accrue more niggles and he will take longer to recover. ATM he reminds me of Aquila Uate who was an absolute killer for about 4 years but then became fairly ordinary as his physicality dropped off.
I really like To’o and don’t want to see this happen to him.
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