This is precisely the point I made to the Newcastle Herald in relation to Brett Keeble's comments today. To criticise Wicks is not to say that he is a dud. All I'm suggesting is that he isn't playing to his potential and perhaps the only way to encourage him to lift his intensity is to give him a spell in the lower grades.
It's a simple case of carrots and sticks, though perhaps Danny would eat the whole donkey rather than just the carrot. It appears he's got a carrot but there's no stick. The metaphor I like better is slap and tickle. There's a whole lot of tickling going on, telling him he's a superstar in the making, and not a lot of slapping. Like anything in life, there are incentives and disincentives. Josh Perry had too many incentives and not enough disincentives -- now look at him, in a strong forward pack having to earn his spot. Danny Buderus said he had a disincentives when he first started -- Johns yelling at him for crap passes. That'd be enough incentive for me.
I like Danny Wicks. I think he's the sort of bloke that makes a team gel off the paddock. But what we need from Danny at the moment is for him to come good on his claims a few months ago that he wanted to lift his intensity. I'm not sure that giving him something he hasn't earned is really the sort of message you want to send. Nor is sidelining White for doing everything that was asked of him.
