Your RD 1 2018 line up

[ouryear]

Gus has never had an issue moving a player on when it’s not working. Every single player that’s signed and ended up surplus has been shipped out pretty quickly. If he’s not cutting it for us and we are rolling Peachey or a younger option that’s gone ahead shipping a 200K former international contract shouldn’t be too hard.

Hee hee, Gus ships them on, really?
Like luke lewis who went on to far greater things.

Perhaps Gould's 100 yr plan is to sack every captain you have.

Foolish enough to sign mediocre Merrin and Soward.

Gould is as over rated as Aaron Woods.

He is a frigging dinosaur.

You will win nothing while Gould pulls the strings.

Now watch how well Moylan plays away from him.

 

[Luke Bowden]

Can't see McKendry being anywhere near the side let alone starting. 2016 Latu shits on anything Sam has ever been

Please... Latu is a great player, but Mckendry knows how to get the forwards rolling out of our 20, when we are in trouble. We have enough fancy ball players, we need another, meter eater. A Nigel Plum if you will.

 

[Luke Bowden]

Hee hee, Gus ships them on, really?
Like luke lewis who went on to far greater things.

Perhaps Gould's 100 yr plan is to sack every captain you have.

Foolish enough to sign mediocre Merrin and Soward.

Gould is as over rated as Aaron Woods.

He is a frigging dinosaur.

You will win nothing while Gould pulls the strings.

Now watch how well Moylan plays away from him.

Have a look at our squad, Gus put that roster together, those young blokes have been playing together since the 20’s, and have all now had a good crack at NRL footy. He’s now added an experienced half who knows how to win football games.

I think he knows what he’s doing Champ.

Thanks for your misguided input though.

 

[umina panther]

Hee hee, Gus ships them on, really?
Like luke lewis who went on to far greater things.

Perhaps Gould's 100 yr plan is to sack every captain you have.

Foolish enough to sign mediocre Merrin and Soward.

Gould is as over rated as Aaron Woods.

He is a frigging dinosaur.

You will win nothing while Gould pulls the strings.

Now watch how well Moylan plays away from him.

Merrin was second only to Tamololo in 2016 he was outstanding

 

[billypilgrimnz]

We have enough fancy ball players, we need another, meter eater. A Nigel Plum if you will.

Do we? Griffin has turned them all into one dimensional meter eaters. Which is probably why McKendry will get the nod - less stuff to coach out of him.

 

[franklin2323]

Given CHN & May are out for round 1. Kikau was back to his usual up and down last night when playing decent forwards. So still have a ? On him. So would go

Edwards
Mansour
Blake
Whare
DWZ
Maloney
Cleary
RCG
Wallace
Tamou
Yeo
Bryce
Merrin

Katoa
Latu
JFH
Peachey

 

[umina panther]

Given CHN & May are out for round 1. Kikau was back to his usual up and down last night when playing decent forwards. So still have a ? On him. So would go

Edwards
Mansour
Blake
Whare
DWZ
Maloney
Cleary
RCG
Wallace
Tamou
Yeo
Bryce
Merrin

Katoa
Latu
JFH
Peachey

I'm not sure Carty can ever be good enough defensively to play out wide against good sides, he's just too big and lacks lateral movement. He has to play in the 13 imo.

Also with Maloney being a turnstile will it be Yeo's job to defend next to him? He's probably the best option

 

[OldPanther]

I'm not sure Carty can ever be good enough defensively to play out wide against good sides, he's just too big and lacks lateral movement. He has to play in the 13 imo.

Also with Maloney being a turnstile will it be Yeo's job to defend next to him? He's probably the best option

Exactly. Inagine BBQ and Carty together on an edge. My poor heart can't take the stress.

 

[mxlegend99]

Given CHN & May are out for round 1. Kikau was back to his usual up and down last night when playing decent forwards. So still have a ? On him. So would go

Edwards
Mansour
Blake
Whare
DWZ
Maloney
Cleary
RCG
Wallace
Tamou
Yeo
Bryce
Merrin

Katoa
Latu
JFH
Peachey

How was he up and down? He carried players with every run. He manhandled guys in defence numerous times.

He played the full 80 minutes
15 runs for 158m gained (20 more metres than the next closest forward)
21 tackles for 0 missed

The only thing you could call negative from him was a few offloads where his inside runner didn't get to them. Put Dylan Edwards in support and those offloads lead to linebreaks. Put Kevin Naiqama in support and you get errors or him missing completely.

If a couple of offloads where the support didn't get them are an issue, I expect you would have dropped Merrin and Cartwright aswell. Merrin did that just about every game this year. Although you could throw in a bunch of missed tackles for them and they certainly aren't going to average 10+ metres per run very often.

 

[billypilgrimnz]

How was he up and down? He carried players with every run. He manhandled guys in defence numerous times.

He played the full 80 minutes
15 runs for 158m gained (20 more metres than the next closest forward)
21 tackles for 0 missed

The only thing you could call negative from him was a few offloads where his inside runner didn't get to them. Put Dylan Edwards in support and those offloads lead to linebreaks. Put Kevin Naiqama in support and you get errors or him missing completely.

If a couple of offloads where the support didn't get them are an issue, I expect you would have dropped Merrin and Cartwright aswell. Merrin did that just about every game this year. Although you could throw in a bunch of missed tackles for them and they certainly aren't going to average 10+ metres per run very often.

You forget the key fact: Griffin has a question mark over Kikau, so franklin automatically has a question mark over Kikau. It's just how this thing works.

 

[Exsilium]

You forget the key fact: Griffin has a question mark over Kikau, so franklin automatically has a question mark over Kikau. It's just how this thing works.

Lucky you explained that. For a second I thought Franklin might have formed his own opinion.

 

[Luke Bowden]

I'm not sure Carty can ever be good enough defensively to play out wide against good sides, he's just too big and lacks lateral movement. He has to play in the 13 imo.

Also with Maloney being a turnstile will it be Yeo's job to defend next to him? He's probably the best option

Maloney isn’t a turnstile, a lot of his mistackles come because he is up out of the line early and putting pressure on the ball players. He more then often slows them down enough for a team to effect the tackle.

His line defence isn’t that bad, he doesn’t cost as many tries as say Preston, Soward, Cartwright or Moylan.

His stats are a little misleading.

 

[Luke Bowden]

Lucky you explained that. For a second I thought Franklin might have formed his own opinion.

I don’t think he has a question mark, I think he is just easing him into first grade.

 

[mxlegend99]

My Round 1 line-up (players in doubt aren't considered)

1. Edwards
2. Mansour
3. Whare
4. Blake
5. DWZ
6. Maloney
7. Cleary
8. Merrin
9. Katoa
10. Tamou (c)
11. Kikau
12. Yeo
13. Cartwright

14. RCG
15. Latu
16. JFH
17. Peachey

While May and CHN are injured, Peachey is probably the best utility option. Otherwise my preference would be him at centre. May as the utility and CHN probably ahead of JFH for a spot.

Tamou is captain... hopefully the captains curse hits him. $750k for 109m per game. Either it fires him up and he leads by example. Or it gets him kicked out. Either way it works out for us.

Kikau... we have a bloke who can make metres with absolutely nothing going on. If he hits a lazy defender he can come out the other side no worries. He can get offloads away with ease... just get him and Edwards in sync and there's a linebreak or two per game.

Our halves should be much better than then Fijian halves aswell. They should be able to get Kikau better ball to get defenders one on one more often.

 

[billypilgrimnz]

I don’t think he has a question mark, I think he is just easing him into first grade.

Very poorly.

 

[billypilgrimnz]

Lucky you explained that. For a second I thought Franklin might have formed his own opinion.

I joke, of course. franklin is able to formulate bizarre opinions all on his own.

 

[billypilgrimnz]

My Round 1 line-up (players in doubt aren't considered)

1. Edwards
2. Mansour
3. Whare
4. Blake
5. DWZ
6. Maloney
7. Cleary
8. Merrin
9. Katoa
10. Tamou (c)
11. Kikau
12. Yeo
13. Cartwright

14. RCG
15. Latu
16. JFH
17. Peachey

Got it in one. Love the lack of Wallace.

 

[mxlegend99]

You forget the key fact: Griffin has a question mark over Kikau, so franklin automatically has a question mark over Kikau. It's just how this thing works.

Probably. Just annoying that he can have huge games that are considered up and down. Yet that would be considered a huge game from literally any player he actually named. He's technically only a reserve grader for us still aswell, yet he's arguably our best so far in this world cup

He played 9 NRL games and has only played 198 minutes.
He has played 3 games for Fiji and has nearly 240 minutes.

Honestly as great as his ball carrying is. It's the way he dominates tackles that would probably be the biggest benefit to our NRL side. Manhandling the backs. Running in to chop players in half. Driving blokes back after contact so they lose metres. Just throwing his size and weight around in general. He ran for 158m, but he must have gained another 20 or 30 through pushing players back in defence aswell.

But no we're happy with players missing 5+ tackles per game. So much so that we just made our highest paid player the worst defender in the competition.

 

[umina panther]

Maloney isn’t a turnstile, a lot of his mistackles come because he is up out of the line early and putting pressure on the ball players. He more then often slows them down enough for a team to effect the tackle.

His line defence isn’t that bad, he doesn’t cost as many tries as say Preston, Soward, Cartwright or Moylan.

His stats are a little misleading.

He is a very poor defender. To say otherwise is just wrong. He has many other strengths

 

[billypilgrimnz]

But no we're happy with players missing 5+ tackles per game. So much so that we just made our highest paid player the worst defender in the competition.

But Moylan missed some tackles in his 8 games at stand off and threw a bad pass against Souths. Burn him!