Offside Monkey wrote:
On the contrary. Meli is suspect at dealing with kicks, we know that. However, tis the wingers' job to take the first scoot out of our territory. With Makinson and Foster being rather diminutive, I was considering how much we miss Meli's size when bringing the ball away from our own line, in terms of not just gaining yards, but a quickish PTB.
Sinfield long kicking game will pin us right back near our line.
Both are just as likely to knock it on as to make yardage or get a quick ptb. A combination of Meli, Gardner and Wellens as our back three have been a major cause in our losses to Leeds in GFs for me, none of them are now fast enough to get under a long kick and we lose 10 yards with them chasing the ball back to our line after letting it bounce. We're on the back foot every set of six. If Roby is back I'd go back to Hohaia, Makinson and Foster (though I know that isn't going to happen). Long kicks against us at the start of the season were being caught and not hitting the floor and we were starting sets on the front foot.
I understand what you're saying about Meli's size, but the negatives to his game on the wing outweigh the positives for me these days. For me, if we were to go back to our slowest players in those positions we'd be doing ourselves no favours at all.
