RebelRebel wrote:
A thread praising Rangi Chase's performances for England seemed a reasonable enough place for me to offer an alternative opinion, regardless of your wish to turn this into some sort of eulogy.
Credit to the player - he was as bemused by his MoM award in the France game as many others, and clearly felt he had a lot of improvement left in him. Against a very weak Welsh team, England were uninspiring for long periods of the game. Again, nothing to write home about.
Whether you like it or not, he will be judged more harshly on his performances, for very obvious reasons. As I've already stated, if he turns in a match winning performance against Australia or New Zealand, I'll eat my words and add a "well done Rangi" to the 12 pages of well done Rangi. Until then, I'll stick to my opinion.
You're right, we can't replay both games with a different half back and compare performances. However, I can assure you that if your granny had wheels, she'd be a granny with wheels. This may make her a car in your eyes, which probably explains why our perceptions differ.
"England were uninspiring for long periods of the game." - All Rangi's fault, obviously. There wasn't anyone else on the field. You could have asked: "Why don't they pick a lot of other England players who are more deserving of a place?" But you didn't, so don't come on now trying to make your argument look like a balanced one. You haven't addressed your "more deserving" rant at all, because if you look at Rangi's performance, he was one of the better players in both games, and it's not like there are other halfbacks in the country who have this season been given the accolades he has. They weren't given to him by Cas fans or Rangi himself - they were all given by a group of people with no axe to grind.
"Whether you like it or not, he will be judged more harshly on his performances, for very obvious reasons." - It's not whether I like it or not, it's whether people can cope with the fact he qualifies under residential rules or not. The rules are there and he hasn't broken any of them. As I said, if you don't like the rules, you can't change them and there's no point in bleating about it - especially not in the form of trolling his adoptive club's forum. There's nothing we can do about it either.
"You're right, we can't replay both games with a different half back and compare performances. However, I can assure you that if your granny had wheels, she'd be a granny with wheels. This may make her a car in your eyes, which probably explains why our perceptions differ." I seriously can't believe I'm reading this garbage. If you've never heard the phrase before, I apologise. However, its a quite common piece of sarcasm which is used to indicate someone's frustration with another person putting forward a pointless hypothetical situation, such as "Can't see any reason for selecting an antipodean thug... in place of more deserving candidates." Especially not when the guy you're actually referring to has been the outstanding candidate according to his form and the views of any unbiased observers over the course of the previous season.
"A thread praising Rangi Chase's performances for England seemed a reasonable enough place for me to offer an alternative opinion, regardless of your wish to turn this into some sort of eulogy." Of course, and please remind me to send you an "I hope you have the crappiest day of your life" card on your birthday.