DSJ1983 wrote:
I’d like to see Westerman get a bit of game time at some point but what’s wrong with Briscoe at centre? I remember watching him years ago in the academy and he was predominantly a centre so knows the position. He’s 34 but still got freakish upper body strength, gets through a load of work and still looks pretty quick for that position. On Friday it also looked like he was using his experience to good effect helping out the much younger Martin, seems a great fit to me.
Yes, agree with this.
We are in the first year of trying to rebuild not only the team but almost the entire club out of the rubble of the past few years. Clearly we have only taken the first couple of steps on the road back and we are nowhere near where we would like to be as a club and a playing roster.
Obviously, the likes of Briscoe, Hardaker, Rapana have more rugby behind them than they have in front of them, but as Friday night showed this core of experienced players can help the club stop the rot and turn us back in the right direction, and one of the key aspects of this is the fact that we can use any of the younger players more sparingly through the year, drip feeding them into the starting line-up rather than flogging them game after game. One of the reasons why Wigan, Saints, Leeds have been so good at bringing young players through is because they do so without heavy responsibility being placed on their shoulders almost from the moment they walk into the first-team dressing room and I think we are aiming for a similar set-up here.
Briscoe can do a valuable job for the team throughout the coming months, be it at centre or on the wing, his experience at the high level of the sport will be immeasurable in helping the young players develop their game at a steady rate hopefully without pressure being piled on them to deliver week after week. Think most fans on here understand where the club are trying to move to, but this will take time, we all know it is not going to be an instant overnight fix, but for the first time in quite a while there appears to be a degree of joined up thinking within the club which is one of the key attributes most of us on here have being looking for during these dark days in the recent past. We're on step one of the climb back, that's all so far. Keep watching this space, it won't be dull, it never is with our club!!!
