Re: Thomas Mikaele : Mon Mar 27, 2023 1:45 pm  

Lord Tony Smith wrote:

We have Vaughan, Dudson, Kasiano, Philbin, McGuire and Thomas all available currently to play front row. How many props do you want?

McGuire isn't back this week, I'd rather have Mikaele until Bullock and Harrison are back. Like i literally said in my post.

Re: Thomas Mikaele : Mon Mar 27, 2023 1:49 pm  

So we have a few queries this week with fitness of Clark & Drinkwater an issue. No Kasiano. Bugger.

Re: Thomas Mikaele : Mon Mar 27, 2023 1:49 pm  

Well you can't have that. He agreed to stay until McGuire is back and Saturday will be his last game unfortunately. I think it's a pretty big loss unless we sign a strong running second row to replace him. We'll miss him crashing onto balls 20 yards out which has become a very good weapon to have.

Re: Thomas Mikaele : Mon Mar 27, 2023 1:57 pm  

Shame he has to go at all, but if he does we should have insisted he stayed at least until end of April given current injuries and run of tough fixtures coming up.

Re: Thomas Mikaele : Mon Mar 27, 2023 1:59 pm  

What a shame. I wouldn't have been so bothered if he had left at the end of 2022, but this season he has been really good. Just hope the exit is managed well and doesn't upset the apple cart.

Re: Thomas Mikaele : Mon Mar 27, 2023 2:02 pm  

Crosswire wrote:

Shame he has to go at all, but if he does we should have insisted he stayed at least until end of April given current injuries and run of tough fixtures coming up.

This.
He’s contracted to play for us until the end of next year.
Now we’re obviously not party to how long this has been an issue with TM (but hey, we can all speculate, that’s what a forum is for) - but if we’re going to lose him I’d much rather it be after a tough set of April fixtures. Seems completely backwards to release him now.

Our last multi-game (>3!) winning start to a season was interspersed by us losing a prop (Dodds broken leg?) and we still won the LLS - I’m confident we will cope either way

Re: Thomas Mikaele : Mon Mar 27, 2023 2:18 pm  

Didn't Dodds play less than 2 half games in his Wire career? Even Gary Wheeler did more game time.

Re: Thomas Mikaele : Mon Mar 27, 2023 2:29 pm  

ninearches wrote:

Didn't Dodds play less than 2 half games in his Wire career? Even Gary Wheeler did more game time.

It was quite a flimsy comparison I’ll admit!

Re: Thomas Mikaele : Mon Mar 27, 2023 2:41 pm  

As good as he's been, prop is the one position we can actually cope with a player leaving. Imagine if George Williams decided he wanted to head back to the nrl this season for another crack? Now that truly would screw the season up!!

Re: Thomas Mikaele : Mon Mar 27, 2023 2:42 pm  

When our game is based on rampaging props - as it is - there is no such thing as too many. Even if you can't get them all in to every matchday squad, there will always be some injured, suspended and/or in need of a rest. As we have seen all season to this point - not sure there have been any weeks where we have just dropped a prop we didn't need. So this is a blow.