People used to say Bevan was too small.
According to Wikipedia:
Dylan Edwards 183cm 93kg
Ryan Papenhuyzen 181cm 80kg
Charnze Nicoll-Klokstadt 182 cm 94kg
Bevan French 181cm 86kg
Bring him back home, O'Neill!
It wasn't that he is too small, it is that he didn't like the collision and he wasn't good at that thing called putting your body in front of a ball carrier and tackling him and he was found out fairly quickly in the NRL for it.
Oh and by the way when he was in the lower grades and still hadn't played NRL I wrote on here at the time that he reminded me of a slightly faster version of Reece Robinson and got howled down by a lot of you. So in the end who was right?
Now who's to say that he has mended that side of his game enough to handle the relentless power that comes at you in the NRL? He may have, but is he worth the risk of trading a player that has been Dally M halfback of the year as inconsistent as he can be for a player that has yet to prove he can even handle the NRL at all?
Remember also when his defensive game was exposed like a Portuguese chicken his confidence totally disappeared and then his running game also collapsed to plop.
Is he worth a shot? Sure, but for Parra at this stage of our evolution I would say no. I mean why would you take the risk of upsetting our best player and captain and moving him from his preferred position? A player who gives his all like no other in the NRL and if he continues on this way will probably go down as a Parra legend and one of the NRL's all time fittest and finest players for a at best 50-50 bet that the guy you replace him with can score a few more tries then him?
Also I believe that Gutho's lack of genuine speed and Moses loss of form are not the real issue here anyway. In my opinion the real issue here is our coach lacks genuine speed between the ears as an NRL level coach. He offers very little to our players other then effort, do the little things right, run hard, tackle hard and that's about it. I think someone like Moses in particular and Dillon probably in a year or two need a mentor that can make the subtle changes to his/their game that are necessary to make him/them consistent and a better all round player/players, but our current coach does not offer those skills.
I also believe it is better and easier to offload a coach that is middle of the road and replace him then it is to find a halfback with the skillset and abilities that both Moses and Dillon possess. There are coaches, hell even assistant coaches out there that are better then BA that we could and should acquire that could do a better job. In particular at mentoring our playmakers and coming up with variety and better game plans. That is our biggest problem, not so much our across the board out of form players.
They are collectively out of form for a reason. The coach has got it wrong somehow and needs to be able to correct it NOW! Did he get them to peak way to early or has he simply run out or ideas and isn't inspiring the boys enough to get them up anymore or both? Whatever the reason, I don't think this guy has the ability to change course and steer the ship off the rocks and into deep and clear water. We need changes at coaching level, not so much at player level.
