Well Ellis can be the exception to the rule.
If we can get one player that can tackle and hold a defensive structure as good as Ellis, and nothing else, it will be a great signing.
We have plenty of good attacking forwards. Woods, Taupau, Blair, Sue, Seumanufagai, Akoula, Lodge and even Sironen.
But defensively, only Woods out of that lot can be suggested as being a top quality defender.
I'm not just talking about effective tackles either, but holding the defensive structure in the middle and towards the ruck edges.
With possibly the weakest defensive halves combination in the comp next year, we need our props and back rowers to be very good at covering their left and right sides and being competent cover defenders so as to help out the halves.
This is something that Thompson and Sironen were not very good at this past season and why we failed to have any defensive strength in the middle, which forced Farah to make more tackles and in turn, do less dummy half running, which is what most of our momentum runs off the back of.
