Hicks : Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:26 pm  

Right, lets not turn this into a Hicks bashing thread but he has changed something in his play this year that i cannot work out and hopefully one of you knowledgable people might be able to shed some light for me

Time after time this year i have seen him take the ball a few yards out from the try line and as the defensive line is moving out to him he comes infield and takes the tackle. Obviously i dont want to see him getting put in touch several times a game but watching a few games lately there have been times that he has ended up held up in the tackle where as a low dive towards the line would have been suffiant to get him over and put the points on the board.

any thoughts?

: Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:28 pm  

Yep, seen the same thing from him this season, he does tend to come inside way too often.
Some times it works of course, such as the try against Wakey (I believe), however it now seems to be his default setting!

: Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:34 pm  

Maybe we just expect more this season? (now we know how good he is)

: Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:34 pm  

Bobby_Peru wrote:

Yep, seen the same thing from him this season, he does tend to come inside way too often.
Some times it works of course, such as the try against Wakey (I believe), however it now seems to be his default setting!

Sometimes it does work, am not having a dig at him i just couldnt understand it. It worked for the last try on sunday against Celtic for example but i do like to see a winger making a dive for the line.

Some teams do it really well, for example Saints, the amount of times i have seen gardner (?) on the wing squeeze in just avoiding the corner flag it it makes for entertaining rugby. We used to do it, I remember seeing Henry Fa'fili doing it a lot but it seems to have gone from our game in the last year or two

: Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:52 pm  

it's known as the "reverse samson effect",he grows a girls haircut and it directly affects his game.
short,back and sides and normal service will be resumed.

: Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:54 pm  

the tache is back wrote:

it's known as the "reverse samson effect",he grows a girls haircut and it directly affects his game.
short,back and sides and normal service will be resumed.

So the reverse for King? Not quite girls haircut but when he arrived he had big hair and played ok, shaved it off and was pants for a while, not he seems to be growing it back and is starting to hit form

: Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:01 pm  

I don't think that there has been the high quality ball put out for him that much this season. Give him decent ball and he will squeeze in at the corner. He is a natural try scorer and he hasn't lost that.

I feel at times the ball goes to him with nothing really on, so he has to step inside rather than going straight into touch. He is good enough to make this work for him and is still scoring.

: Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:46 pm  

i put to down to him been not confident with his pace to go on the outside and beat the man he did on sunday cut inside when the outside opition would have resulted in a try

: Tue Mar 31, 2009 7:17 pm  

The only problem i have with Chris Hicks is what i pointed out at the time when we signed him which is a lack of out and out pace, with Matt King on one wing and Hicks on the other we are not the quickest on the outside so it restricts the sort of range that we are capable of scoring tries from.

Where Chris Hicks is excells is close to the opponents line, he has nimble footwork and strength and normally he is a decent one on one defender but he is prone to anyone with pace taking him on.

: Tue Mar 31, 2009 7:43 pm  

Rob Wire wrote:

The only problem i have with Chris Hicks is what i pointed out at the time when we signed him which is a lack of out and out pace, with Matt King on one wing and Hicks on the other we are not the quickest on the outside so it restricts the sort of range that we are capable of scoring tries from.

Where Chris Hicks is excells is close to the opponents line, he has nimble footwork and strength and normally he is a decent one on one defender but he is prone to anyone with pace taking him on.

I agree with you.

What happened to the stories of his 10.74 sec 100m stuff.

Serious question Rob, and everyone else really, but you in particular Rob,

Q1. Is Chris Hicks a better finisher than the much maligned Henry Fa'afilli ?

A1. For me, no, I thought Henry was better, he took half chances better. Got the ball down in seemingly impossible situations etc.

Q2. Who would you rather have ? (Assuming we had another recognised kicker, so it was contribution based on winger v winger)

A2. Tough call, for me, Hicks just I think. I'm kinda torn, Hicks because he has better value out of acting half, better workrate, also in theory he must be quicker etc. I just felt Fa'afilli was underrated, he had that tryscoring ability but you have to factor in that Riley, Reardon, Hicks etc have all done well outside Gleeson. It's a tough one, Hicks just.

Discuss.