I was watching the Jim Beam Cup thing as well...I was about to say the same thing.
Problem was Randall was in a team that got pumped by 40. To be honest, I wasn't that impressed, his opposing winger Anton Lavin for the Jets had a whale of a game.
Randall did ok in bursts, scored an ok try, he has a lot of speed, dunno how old he is, but he looks a bit too skinny to ever hit first grade and in my opinion these are the only types of people you should have in your reserve grade, the ones you believe can make it to the first grade level.
With regards to centres...I still believe Michael Jennings will be and should be Luke Lewis's partner in the centres. He is quite competant in defence and has been known to put on a big hit. He has actually developed alot in size over the last year from what I saw of him last year when he was playing in the Australian Schoolboys team.
Jennings has this knack of elusiveness that I think we wont have next year when Preston leaves, hence why I feel its important for him to figure in our plans. I think with Preston going, that takes away a lot of our spontaneous attacking flair in the middle of the ruck. With Jennings, I see a Timana Tahu style centre who can save a try as well as create and score them. I believe if you paired Jennings with Rooney and Lewis with Gordon, you will reap the rewards next season.
Rooney needs a creative centre inside him who is quick. Rooney lost 1-2 metres of pace this year because he just wasn't challenged enough plus injuries to his ankles pre-season.
If I was Elliot, all i'd be telling Rooney to do is speed work and give him 50 catches a day to take...because next year if we are to win, we'll do it on the back of one thing....and that is kicking to our wingers. We can't afford to have Lewis and Rooney paired together. It dents our attack.
Having Lewis with Gordon provides a great form of attack on the left, and Jennings and Rooney a great spontaneous attack on the right...but with our kicking we now have Lewis and Rooney on opposite sides of the field and allow us to exploit their extremely good high ball skills in the opposition red zone and go back to the glory days of 2003.
