Saddened! wrote:
I don't get that mentality. Lomax is finished, permanently. He's no faster than Barba is and he's been out for a year and is in terrible condition.
Barba was the one of only two sources of creativity and threat last night, Richardson being the other. Yet you want to drop him? I know he's not fit, but I don't see how not playing him will help that or us. We won't win a semi final or final without him and possibly won't with him either. But we need to give him the time in the side, for the sake of next season if nothing else.
Although I know Saddened is something of a provocateur, there is a grain of truth in what he says here. It's possible to make a case - and I emphasise through no fault of Lomax's own - that the club's sentimental attitude towards Lomax is at the heart of our decline since 2014. In that period, he has missed huge numbers of games. That in itself has hurt the club. But more: because of his status, the club didn't seek to buy a replacement, permanent fullback (until the Barba opportunity was seized). Instead we've taken journeymen short-termers like McDonnell and Quinlan, which meant we didn't adequately replace this absolutely vital position for the last three years. In addition, Lomax was taking up a significant slice of the salary cap. Which - along with similar long-term absentees like Walsh - meant that we couldn't recruit the quality of player we needed to remain competitive, and ended up taking on championship-standard players like Lee, Owens and Peyroux.
When Lomax recovered fit enough to play, we played him - we had to, given his wages. But as Saddened points out, his speed has gone, his manoeuvrability has also gone, and his defence has never been his strong point, as he's fairly small. Which means that we have a player who does know how to join the line in attack, but does in easy-to-defend predictable straight lines, with very little chance of elusive footwork, and who is not secure in defence. Yet even now, we lever him into the starting lineup every week, despite the fact that he is not our best fullback, he isn't our best standoff, he isn't our best scrum-half and he certainly isn't one of our two best centres. People have moaned a lot about how pushing Smith ahead of Richardson caused problems for us against Wigan. But for me, substituting Lomax for the in-form Fages was equally damaging. I've seen people argue Fages must have suffered a blow to his morale because of his replacement to fit Barba in the side. But he wasn't shifted to fit Barba in the side. He was shifted to fit Lomax in the side, once Barba replaced Lomax.
Lomax is a great guy, by all accounts, and a model professional in the earnest Kevin Sinfield mode. None of this is his fault. But he is no longer the quality of fullback we need to bring glory back to the club. Barba can be. Lomax will never be again. We're often a sentimental club to our players - particularly the home-grown veterans. We held on to Wellens too long. Some would argue we're holding on to Wilkin too long. We've probably held on to Lomax too long, and because of the significance of his pay packet, it's hurt the whole club badly.
