Yeah he was motm for mine. Absolute gun. He just gets all those little things right. He doesn't make errors, always mindful of the sideline, always cleans up when needed. If he was 15cm taller and 8kgs heavier he'd be playing for Australia.
He'd still be playing fullback if he was a 80% goal kicker. Lolohea is rank average. A couple steps off the pace ATM.
Lolohea's goalkicking fucking sucks regardless. I'd be picking him at fullback anyway because I think he has a higher ceiling there than Thompson with his ball-playing and Thompson offers so much on the wing too, but if he's playing for goalkicking reasons I think that's silly -- he's not much if any better than Marsters.
His ball-playing is severely over-rated. It was trash today. It consisted of running sideways running out room and team mates to dummy to drop under too.
Yeah Lolohea is a bit of a problem. He really needs to play better than he has. He's barely done anything since joining us and it's just not improved. I think Lolohea playing FB in reggies would be better to see if he can find form and fitness, because he's too great a liability defensively at FB at the moment. Plus we can use Nofoaluma's metres out the back. Thompson doesn't offer a great deal in attack as a ball player but we can probably live with it if we grind out results.
You cunts would make him play on the left anyway. If he's going to do that he might as well do it for Wests.
How different is it to play on the other wing? I guess it'd be a big change coming to finishing in terms of stepping back inside and defensively which shoulder your lead on, but if we're going to insist on playing using our backs so heavily for hitups, it's kind of silly to leave Nofoaluma out. I'd even consider Fonua over Watene-Zelezniak for that purpose. With that said MWZ has been ok so I don't think you can justify dropping him either. No-one's really been poor for us this season, but I still think we could stand to improve a few positions. McQueen is such a waste of money in reserves and a 3 year deal too ffs.
Expected a little more out of Matulino tbh, he hasn't done a great deal of work the past few games. Impressed with Eisenhuth again this year, Twal has been a gun and Packer's done a good job. Rochow's been a great find. I'm guessing Reynolds has to go to 9/14 and replaces Godinet at this stage because Marshall can't be dropped and Brooks has been playing better each week amazingly. 50 minutes of Reynolds and 30 of Liddle could actually be pretty good. I think Eisenhuth needs to stay at lock. Between his ball playing, workrate and offloading ability he makes a pretty good modern day lock. I think Chee-Kam is the odd man out, but he's been decent in limited time too. I think we kick Lolohea to reserves and see if he can get back into shape and get a bit of confidence and roll with: 1. Thompson 2. Nofoaluma 3. Marsters 4. Naiqama 5. Watene-Zeleniak 6. Marshall 7. Brooks 8. Packer 9. Reynolds 10. Matulino 11. Lawrence 12. Taylor 13. Eisenhuth 14. Liddle 15. Twal 16. Aloiai 17. Rochow I guess we could do Eisenhuth on the bench and start Rochow in the 13 too.
When did Naiuquaimau last play fullback? I seem to remember him making a real fist of it for Fiji ages ago and can recall a couple of Panthers reggies games where he was just taking names and turning games. Always thought he'd end up there given his abysmal positioning in defence in the centres.
And I just can't get the images of Reynolds crow hopping out of dummy half for NSW whenever he's mentioned for a hooker role. Has he actually learnt to pass from the ground yet?