Exodus 2017
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@munstergreen said in Exodus 2017:
With all the work Nucifora is doing, I can't see him allowing us sign a world class fullback/winger to stand in the way of their progression.
It really is the twilight zone up there where Nucifora, Lam and to a lesser extent Anscombe are respected as slick operators.
Smith has utility value, so wouldn't necessarily be seen as a pure fullback. The trend of many of the more successful teams has been two play a hybrid fullback/wing type player in the 14 jerseys anyway.
Apparently good in the sheds, leadership etc - plus his key skills are not going to diminish quickly with age.
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@Crucial said in Exodus 2017:
@gollum said in Exodus 2017:
@Bovidae said in Exodus 2017:
I think Cruden is the most likely to go. With Smith and Dagg, Dagg's decision may be dependent on Smith's because if BFA leaves Dagg would be the best option at FB. What Hansen won't want is a repeat of 1990 with Gallagher and Ridge.
Gallagher & Ridge going was bad, but it was more that Botica, Crossan & Halligan went too... we went from worlds best fullback to 6th choice NZer in about 6 months
So let's apply that scenario now for arguments sake.
We lose BFA and Dagg. Our next best fullback option is BB but he would prefer to play 10. Next cabs are who? DMac? .....NMS? The cupboard is pretty bare and it somewhat surprises me that they took the collective eye off the position for so long without working on backups.
they what? took their eye off what? They have Smith (who is seemingly always available) and Dagg, 2 genuinely world class players in the position. And behind them you have Barrett as a very capable back-up. Add to that they bought in the next best performing Super rugby fullback to get test experience. But they haven't done enough? Just how far down the food chain do you expect them to go, while at the same time winning every test, which we also want? There are 5 fulltime, professional starting fullbacks in the country, 3 of them played tests this year. That's a winger-esque comment Crucial, you are better than that.
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@mariner4life there was similar debate about 2011/2012 around DC, being critical of the issues that arose in the 2011 RWC at 10....was very funny, we were down to using our 5th 10 then (Weepu played at 10 at some point IIRC - DC, Slade, Cruden, Donald, Weepu) and yet somehow the coaches shoulda had the foresight to develop more depth.
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@taniwharugby said in Exodus 2017:
@mariner4life there was similar debate about 2011/2012 around DC, being critical of the issues that arose in the 2011 RWC at 10....was very funny, we were down to using our 5th 10 then (Weepu played at 10 at some point IIRC - DC, Slade, Cruden, Donald, Weepu) and yet somehow the coaches shoulda had the foresight to develop more depth.
I thought they got a lot of praise at the time for having blooded those guys (Donald, Cruden) and not axed them so brutally they left or were unselectable?
Literally the opposite to the way Deans & Mitch handled Merts & Cullen which then bit us in the arse at the 2003 WC.
Same way Joe Rokocoko has spent a lot of time playing centre up north, and been surprisingly good.
OH! that just reminded me of a thing I read in the Sunday Times re the pillaging of Fiji in France & this bit stood out -
Ryan says. So when the opportunity arises to go abroad, the players see it as their right to take it, to bring financial help to their communities. That is why there are about 165 Fijian players in France alone. “A percentage of them come and fail,” Ryan explains, “and generally it’s because of a cowboy agent who signed them and left them, they don’t get help, they are drinking too much, they are getting lonely. . .”
There is a strong Islander community, though. If Joe Rokocoko, who is at Racing 92, for instance, or Akapusi Qera, the captain who is at Montpellier, hear of players in trouble, they try to help them out. “They are the unofficial guardians,” Ryan says. “That is part of Pacific Island culture.”
For anyone who ever slagged of Joe's workrate, give yourself a neckroll.
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@mariner4life said in Exodus 2017:
@Crucial said in Exodus 2017:
@gollum said in Exodus 2017:
@Bovidae said in Exodus 2017:
I think Cruden is the most likely to go. With Smith and Dagg, Dagg's decision may be dependent on Smith's because if BFA leaves Dagg would be the best option at FB. What Hansen won't want is a repeat of 1990 with Gallagher and Ridge.
Gallagher & Ridge going was bad, but it was more that Botica, Crossan & Halligan went too... we went from worlds best fullback to 6th choice NZer in about 6 months
So let's apply that scenario now for arguments sake.
We lose BFA and Dagg. Our next best fullback option is BB but he would prefer to play 10. Next cabs are who? DMac? .....NMS? The cupboard is pretty bare and it somewhat surprises me that they took the collective eye off the position for so long without working on backups.
they what? took their eye off what? They have Smith (who is seemingly always available) and Dagg, 2 genuinely world class players in the position. And behind them you have Barrett as a very capable back-up. Add to that they bought in the next best performing Super rugby fullback to get test experience. But they haven't done enough? Just how far down the food chain do you expect them to go, while at the same time winning every test, which we also want? There are 5 fulltime, professional starting fullbacks in the country, 3 of them played tests this year. That's a winger-esque comment Crucial, you are better than that.
NMS is also a pretty handy fullback.
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@taniwharugby said in Exodus 2017:
@mariner4life there was similar debate about 2011/2012 around DC, being critical of the issues that arose in the 2011 RWC at 10....was very funny, we were down to using our 5th 10 then (Weepu played at 10 at some point IIRC - DC, Slade, Cruden, Donald, Weepu) and yet somehow the coaches shoulda had the foresight to develop more depth.
The criticism was more about how poorly they developed a genuine back up to Carter in 2009/10.
2009 Home Season - Focused on Donald, found massively wanting every game - but especially in the republic. They largely give up on him and look for replacements.
2009 EOYT - Hedge their bets with McAllister (Henry later admits it was too early and he was coming off an injury) and Delany in hopes of finding someone better than Donald - while still carrying him in the squad. Delany plays in dour conditions in Italy and cannot impress, McAllister clearly not fit. Both binned.
2010 Home Season - They go all in on Cruden now, then turf him after one bad half with a wonky leg in Sydney. Slade saves their bacon in that test - but they turf him too.
2010 EOYT - Back to Donald now. But Hong Kong is the first stop and the option of taking him to the RWC with any faith is gone. Sivi is injured in the test, which opens up a spot for a call up with 4 tests remaining. Herny & co decline to name a replacement, Carter starts all 4 tests on tour including against Scotland. Donald dropped at the end of the tour - valuable experience missed for Slade/Cruden.
2011 Home Season - Onto Slade now - the give him only 60 really substantive minutes (albeit without key players) against the Boks before being subbed by Piri.So basically in 2 years they dropped McAlister, Delany, Slade, Cruden and Donald (x2) - not doing much for their confidence obviously. In the process they only had a passing glance at both Cruden and Slade because they kept giving game time to Donald to reprove again that he wasn't up to it - so when they inevitably circled back to them they were total unknown quantities at that level.
Somehow we went into the 2011 RWC with four of the five obvious back up options in the 10 jersey all having their stock at the lowest levels in their AB career. I don't count Delany as I'm unconvinced he ever had stock to begin with.
Easily the worst string of selecting under the Henry era. At least some of the poor locking selections were unavoidable due to injury.
It seemed worse at the time too because of how far things had fallen from 2007 where Evans was outperforming Carter at times and MacDonald and McAlister had performed well there in big tests filling in there too.
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@gollum said in Exodus 2017:
I'm gonna go out on a limb here & say Slade would have played more had he not been broken literally all the time....
From his debut in 2010 until he went down in the Quarter Final he was available for selection for every test. He missed a good chunk of the 2011 Crusaders season with a broken jaw though. In the time frame after that he was a bit more injury prone.
Slade was pretty durable relative to other guys in that squad like Kahui, Toeava, Carter and even Cruden.
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Not to break up the nostalgia that has overtaken the thread...but returning to the current AB side and Franks has re-signed.
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@rotated it seems you were one of those in the camp claiming they failed to get a decent back up to DC, yet you go through and show that they did in fact try to find someone, and fortunately, for the best part of his career, DC was pretty durable, not to mention raising the bar as well.
How else could they have solved the issue?
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@taniwharugby said in Exodus 2017:
@rotated it seems you were one of those in the camp claiming they failed to get a decent back up to DC, yet you go through and show that they did in fact try to find someone, and fortunately, for the best part of his career, DC was pretty durable, not to mention raising the bar as well.
How else could they have solved the issue?
As hinted at in the above post once they made the decision Donald wasn't up to it in 2009 then dedicate their efforts to finding an adequate replacement - specifically not dropping Cruden after his first start and taking Slade on the EOYT to being with or at the very least after Hong Kong when they really were done with Donald for good (as pointed out there was an injury and as a utility he would have been an adequate replacement, besides they had taken 3 10s in 2009).
After deciding Cruden was the best option going forward 18 months out from the cup, then Slade 12 months from the Cup they somehow went into the tournament with Cruden having started one test (while clearly carrying a niggle in his kicking leg) and Salde two tests (one of which was against Fiji).
That was nothing but lack of conviction with selection, player development and time management. One of the very few missteps they made.
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again, what should they have done differently?
On one hand the best 10 to have played the game, so you want him to play, as you pointed out, they tried numerous players over the time, I don't care about what you hinted, that is irrelevant, what is relevant is they were looking for a back up, which just didnt pan out, poorly timed injuries, poor luck in other instances (Donald was much maligned for the HK loss, when there were others equally culpable) granted they didn't pan out perfectly or to plan, but again, what more should or could they have done?
Short of benching DC for a season to give someone a better shot at establishing themselves, I cant see what they could or should have done differently that would have changed much.
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@taniwharugby Looking at the above, and thinking back to it. The only clearly screw up was the selection of McAlister. That really didn't make any sense.
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@MajorRage case of square peg, round hole?
I honestly don't see how they could have done anything greatly different, or with enough of an impact that would have seen us win more games.
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@taniwharugby he hadnt played for ages, hadn't played in NZ hence for/against any of his team mates in even longer & was coming off an injury.
It was a straight out panic selection, and a huge risk. Which didn't pay off.
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The gap between Carter and the rest in 2009-11 (after Evans left) was actually huge so made picking a replacement a lot harder. They did freak out a bit, and blow their own plan in 2010 by not taking away Cruden and Slade. In the end they needed all of them anyway - so maybe it didn't matter. (I see we're perpetuating the Slade saves our bacon myth instead of the Kaino saves out bacon truth
).But hey, sometimes a coach gets lucky and the timing is right, Hansen did ok, DC left and Barrett turns in career best performances that many if they're honest didn't think he had in him, and before that he had Cruden to come in when DC was injured at a time when Cruden was on fire.
@MajorRage Yep, the McAlister selection against France was the worse thing possible for both NZ and him. We blew a test, and he lost most of his reputation (his return is looked back as completely negative now when he actually had a couple of decent tests.)
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@Nepia said in Exodus 2017:
The gap between Carter and the rest in 2009-11 (after Evans left) was actually huge so made picking a replacement a lot harder. They did freak out a bit, and blow their own plan in 2010 by not taking away Cruden and Slade. In the end they needed all of them anyway - so maybe it didn't matter. (I see we're perpetuating the Slade saves our bacon myth instead of the Kaino saves out bacon truth
).But hey, sometimes a coach gets lucky and the timing is right, Hansen did ok, DC left and Barrett turns in career best performances that many if they're honest didn't think he had in him, and before that he had Cruden to come in when DC was injured at a time when Cruden was on fire.
@MajorRage Yep, the McAlister selection against France was the worse thing possible for both NZ and him. We blew a test, and he lost most of his reputation (his return is looked back as completely negative now when he actually had a couple of decent tests.)
Did he? From memory, I thought he looked good against weak opposition but the minute he faced a decent defence, all he did was ineffectively run sideways. He was no better than Donald (arguably worse).
In hindsight, dropping Cruden was the biggest mistake because Slade didn't exactly turn out to be a memorable AB 10 anyway. From memory, 2011 was the HammerCanes year, which was a complete mess and one of the main reasons why Cruden missed out on the AB squad at first. The next year he was at the Chiefs, had a brilliant Super season and easily made the ABs, so they should've given him a chance to settle in.
But having said all that, who gives a shit about drudging this crap up yet again? Maybe you've forgotten but we won the 2011 RWC, in part because we had four AB 10s. Things worked out like a cliche sports movie, with Donald getting a ton of undeserved shit from all corners but coming back and turning himself into a hero. If I could go back and change it, I wouldn't change a thing (well, maybe drop Guildford...).
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@Billy-Tell said in Exodus 2017:
Not to break up the nostalgia that has overtaken the thread...but returning to the current AB side and Franks has re-signed.
Great news, somewhere out there in the real world redbeard just climaxed.
