lots of suggestion, mostly from Raiders fans and no one at the club mind you, that they want to play Tapine in the middle
If true it would be f**king idiotic. Playing him there pretty much cancels out all his best assets like his foot work 1-1 and his off load to outside men.
Absolute madness. Even before he played first grade it was obvious where his strengths were, and nothing has changed. Get him out wide and his late footwork is fantastic, he can ball play, we've already seen he's got a flick pass that he actually uses wisely. He's a menace out there.
In the middle he just becomes a small forward carting up and getting bashed. Don't understand this at all if it's true.
I am genuinely disappointed because I really, really rate Tapine. Sure we can say we have other backrowers to bring through, but none are like him. He brings something different to the table and it was exciting to think he might reach his full potential for us.
The concerning thing is that we get very little out of our young up and coming stars before they get offered huge contracts elsewhere - so even when we hang onto them we've lost the strategic cap building element. We end up paying our young players the salary they should really be getting paid in about 2-3 years when they've proved it.
Other teams always seem to have a group of highly talented young players coming through, not on big contracts, and not getting targeted or poached left, right and centre.
