Spine Backup

[greena]

How has Arthur left the roster with no real backup for the positions in the spine.

If Mahoney is out this week Ray Stone is the replacement. Now I have no problem with Stone's toughness he has none of the necessary ball playing skills or speed off the mark to cover the position.

Same if Gutherson is out at some stage who is the replacement Smith

Field ( a late signing) covers the halves, but he is average at best. Where are our much hyped juniors. We have plenty of depth in the forwards but nobody that stands out in the backs.

 

[Gronk]

How has Arthur left the roster with no real backup for the positions in the spine.

If Mahoney is out this week Ray Stone is the replacement. Now I have no problem with Stone's toughness he has none of the necessary ball playing skills or speed off the mark to cover the position.

Same if Gutherson is out at some stage who is the replacement Smith

Field ( a late signing) covers the halves, but he is average at best. Where are our much hyped juniors. We have plenty of depth in the forwards but nobody that stands out in the backs.

Mate we have Kyle Schneider on a development contract. IIRC he is 18, but is in Fittler's emerging Blues squad already. Stone won't miss a tackle but agree provides average service. You can't throw a rookie in and expect him to play 80 mins, so you'd need to have Stone on the bench.

For Gutho we do have another rookie Johnny Fonua floating around, however Fergo can cover for Gutho in a pinch and Dunster can play wing.

Field is a good fill in for 1 and 6, 7.

Former Sharks boom U20's player Rhys Davies is also in the top 30. He can play 7 & 9.

Would you prefer that our squad warehouse a full first grade spine just in case we get injuries ? If so, you'll need to chop players like RCG, Jnr, Brown etc.

https://www.parraeels.com.au/news/2...players-and-young-faces-join-2020-pre-season/

 

[84 Baby]

1. Penriff - fortunate timing that allows them to have Burton as their backup. He won’t be there next year. If they were to lose Cleary and Korisau they’d be f**ked.
2. Scum - we beat them when they were missing the two Cammies.
3. Rorters - been able to hide/successfully integrate backups in but Verrills and Lam aren’t superstars.
4. Canbra - Starling serves a purpose but who the f**k are their halves/CNK backups?
5. Knights - had to sign McCullough to cover themselves. Now they are a key injury away from Kurt Mann being their chief playmaker.
6. Souffs - Corey Allan is up/down but their next backup in spine is Dargan...
7. Sharks - well their backups are better than most of their starters so that’s an unfair comparison.
8. Everyone else - either their starters aren’t good enough or for someone like Moanly they also don’t have good enough backups to rely on them to get them to finals.
Our junior spine backup is already one of our (injured) starters. The next couple are probably a year or 2 away

 

[T.S Quint]

Field is average?

That’s better than below average.

 

[Noise]

Stone won't miss a tackle but agree provides average service.
https://www.parraeels.com.au/news/2...players-and-young-faces-join-2020-pre-season/

Stone's defence is a bit over rated. Sure he looks like an angry merkin but since he has increased his minutes he has missed plenty of tackles:

Round 17 - 3 missed, 2 ineffective
Round 16 - 6 missed, 0 ineffective
Round 15 - 1 missed, 2 ineffective

I'd shudder to think how many he would miss if he was forced to play 80.

 

[Joshuatheeel]

We have field, Taka, Stone, Davis, Rankin, Salmon who can play in the spine.

plus we had rookies in Fonua (assuming he was still here before shut down) / Schneider who were potential options but no NSW cup stopped their development.

No NSW cup also hurt Rankins / Davis chances

anyhow we have a few options

 

[greena]

We tried Fergo at fullback once last year and he was a disaster. I haven't been impressed by either Fonua or Dunster to date. I liked Schneider when he started in a couple of years ago but injuries have slowed his development. It's telling that he is not backup to Mahoney. Stone is one of those players that tries hard but but is too small to make an impact in the forwards.

Of course you can't stack your reserves with quality players but you can do better developing your junior talent and sign better depth players without affecting the cap. Our reserve grade (Wenty) have been poor for a couple of years now.

 

[Joshuatheeel]

We tried Fergo at fullback once last year and he was a disaster. I haven't been impressed by either Fonua or Dunster to date. I liked Schneider when he started in a couple of years ago but injuries have slowed his development. It's telling that he is not backup to Mahoney. Stone is one of those players that tries hard but but is too small to make an impact in the forwards.

Of course you can't stack your reserves with quality players but you can do better developing your junior talent and sign better depth players without affecting the cap. Our reserve grade (Wenty) have been poor for a couple of years now.

Fergo never played fullback for us last year, he had one game at centre.

Pretty hard for Schneider to be a back up, if he isn’t playing footy.

I reckon BA and his brain trust actually had him marked as our back up (he has backed youngsters before with minimal experience Mahoney/Drown), which is why we he was happy with our depth. But because of COVID 19 preventing NSW cup the plan didn’t work out (who could plan for this year). He is to young to risk without a few games under his belt.

Wenty made the GF last year, pretty good form I think. This year we were going to have our own NSW cup side....

 

[Noise]

We have field, Taka, Stone, Davis, Rankin, Salmon who can play in the spine.

plus we had rookies in Fonua (assuming he was still here before shut down) / Schneider who were potential options but no NSW cup stopped their development.

No NSW cup also hurt Rankins / Davis chances

anyhow we have a few options

Out of those back up/depth players, BA has showed that he is only prepared to play 2 of them in our spine this year - Field and Stone (and I don't think Stone should be anywhere near our spine). Covid may have f**ked his plans this year but it is not wrong that in 2020 our depth in the spine is poor.

 

[hineyrulz]

lol @ BA having a brains trust.

 

[parrathruandthru]

We tried Fergo at fullback once last year and he was a disaster. I haven't been impressed by either Fonua or Dunster to date. I liked Schneider when he started in a couple of years ago but injuries have slowed his development. It's telling that he is not backup to Mahoney. Stone is one of those players that tries hard but but is too small to make an impact in the forwards.

Of course you can't stack your reserves with quality players but you can do better developing your junior talent and sign better depth players without affecting the cap. Our reserve grade (Wenty) have been poor for a couple of years now.

Tell that to the guys that run at him

 

[Joshuatheeel]

Covid may have f**ked his plans this year but it is not wrong that in 2020 our depth in the spine is poor.

I reckon its fine and no better/or worse than most clubs.

Who really has good spine depth? A few clubs even struggle with their starting spine let alone spine depth....

 

[Noise]

Tell that to the guys that run at him

The Souths players were running at him all night. And he kept missing.

 

[emjaycee]

If you take the spine players who are picked in the top 17 out of each of the top 4 clubs, you get some interesting names and experience levels.
Penrith (66 games):
Aekins (12) Staines (2) Laurie (2) McGrady (0) Blore (0) Burton (5) May (29) Kenny (16)

Storm (53 games):
Johns (1) Akinson (0) Hynes (7) Jacks (45)

Eels (125 games):
Salmon (17) Field (15) Rankin (40) Smith (53) Davies (0)

Roosters (25 games):
Lam (10) Hutchison (12) Lussick (3)

This is based on what each club has listed as the players position on their team site.
Our spine depth is actually way in front of the other top 4 teams. Doesn't mean it is quality but it sure isn't worsened by a lack of experience.

 

[T-Boon]

lol @ BA having a brains trust.

Kidwell looks Clark Kent smart in his glasses.

 

[T-Boon]

I suppose "spine" is settled RL nomenclature now but I prefer "wishbone" because the BOW, half and FB don't ever stand in a straight line spine like formation they tend to set up in a wishbone formation.

 

[hindy111]

1. Penriff - fortunate timing that allows them to have Burton as their backup. He won’t be there next year. If they were to lose Cleary and Korisau they’d be f**ked.
2. Scum - we beat them when they were missing the two Cammies.
3. Rorters - been able to hide/successfully integrate backups in but Verrills and Lam aren’t superstars.
4. Canbra - Starling serves a purpose but who the f**k are their halves/CNK backups?
5. Knights - had to sign McCullough to cover themselves. Now they are a key injury away from Kurt Mann being their chief playmaker.
6. Souffs - Corey Allan is up/down but their next backup in spine is Dargan...
7. Sharks - well their backups are better than most of their starters so that’s an unfair comparison.
8. Everyone else - either their starters aren’t good enough or for someone like Moanly they also don’t have good enough backups to rely on them to get them to finals.
Our junior spine backup is already one of our (injured) starters. The next couple are probably a year or 2 away

Most sides lack real quality.

We have W.Smith,Field,Salmon,Rhys Davies. I feel like those 4 would be in the top half of back ups tbh....

 

[Noise]

If you take the spine players who are picked in the top 17 out of each of the top 4 clubs, you get some interesting names and experience levels.
Penrith (66 games):
Aekins (12) Staines (2) Laurie (2) McGrady (0) Blore (0) Burton (5) May (29) Kenny (16)

Storm (53 games):
Johns (1) Akinson (0) Hynes (7) Jacks (45)

Eels (125 games):
Salmon (17) Field (15) Rankin (40) Smith (53) Davies (0)

Roosters (25 games):
Lam (10) Hutchison (12) Lussick (3)

This is based on what each club has listed as the players position on their team site.
Our spine depth is actually way in front of the other top 4 teams. Doesn't mean it is quality but it sure isn't worsened by a lack of experience.

The biggest issue is we don't have a backup 9. Storm and Roosters have Brandon Smith and Verills. We have no one in our whole squad. Stone is not and will never be a 9. Also, besides Field, BA doesn't trust any of the players listed there to play first grade anymore.

 

[Joshuatheeel]

The biggest issue is we don't have a backup 9. Storm and Roosters have Brandon Smith and Verills. We have no one in our whole squad. Stone is not and will never be a 9. Also, besides Field, BA doesn't trust any of the players listed there to play first grade anymore.

Yeah the storm have great depth at hooker.

however the roosters / Verrills is a very similar situation to us and Schneider...they took a chance with Verrills (rookie with no nrl experience) as a back up in 2019, like us in 2020 ...

 

[Noise]

Yeah the storm have great depth at hooker.

however the roosters / Verrills is a very similar situation to us and Schneider...they took a chance with Verrills (rookie with no nrl experience) as a back up in 2019, like us in 2020 ...

The Roosters situation wasn't that similar in 2019. They had Friend, Radley (who was listed as a hooker and still is even though he played lock this year) and Verrills. They also trusted that Verrills was ready.

We have Stone who certainly isn't a hooker and Schneider who isn't trusted to play.