No1 Saint wrote:
If Shenton was on a mint and Turner is coming in on a fair bit less it could simply be we're looking to get some balance back to the squad. We look like we've got luck for left centre , i.e Josh Jones who wont be on a massive wedge even on his new deal so maybe we are trying to free up cap space to add some real grunt to the pack and maybe some experience in the halves.
Our 3/4 line for next season so far consists of a choice of 4 from:
1. A good solid (but little else) youngster who had a great first year but has disappeared off the rails and completely out of the first team squad altogether over the last year.
2. An (in bursts) promising looking kid who, despite all the hyperbole, has rarely come near to frightening the horses yet.
3. Another promising looking kid with a long way to go in his career who's looked solid and workmanlike but little more so far.
4. A potentially brilliant young #6 who's injured all the time and just doesn't have the basic physicality to be a centre.
5. A player who's been bumping around the league at 3/4 for a few seasons now without exactly setting the world on fire and generally looking a bit rubbish in defence.
6. A good, solid old pro who'll do all the hard work in the world and fall over the line when it's given to him, but is injured most of the time.
7. Any number of other kids in the u20s who may get a game.
One experienced old pro who now is never fit and who's never been much better than average anyway, plus 5 or 6 young lads from whom we'll be doing exceptionally well to see 2 making it at anything like the top level, and even then probably only a couple of seasons more down the line if they do basically... Not a single even remotely international class player among them FFS.
Can anyone come up with a single reason why we're not staring down the barrel of having the worst, least threatening, potentially most porous 3/4 line we've had since the Murphy days, because I'm really, really struggling to think of one myself? David Tanner, Tony Kay and Mark Bailey would look like superstars in amongst that lot at the moment frankly. Even taking into account the all-time low backline talent levels the game is now suffering from that looks a woefully inadequate line to me...
All the Meli/Shenton haters are bang on course to see what a non-threatening basket case 3/4 line
really looks like next year at this rate - I wonder who the one-eyed fools will turn their vacuum-packed opinionated hatred on then?