2016 End-of-year internationals
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@Bones i rate parisse, but creevy even more so. as unbelievably good as coles has become - often a standout in arguably the greatest AB team - you can see situations where creevy's extra strength and work at the breakdown would be an improvement. a similarly brutal player to bismarck when he was playing at his very best, but more skilful.
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@reprobate said in 2016 End-of-year internationals:
@Bones i rate parisse, but creevy even more so. as unbelievably good as coles has become - often a standout in arguably the greatest AB team - you can see situations where creevy's extra strength and work at the breakdown would be an improvement. a similarly brutal player to bismarck when he was playing at his very best, but more skilful.
Yeah, Creevy for 50 minutes then Coles subbing on to run wild would be brutal... A bit like an elevated version of Anton Oliver doing it for 50 mins & then Mealamu subbing on & running about like an enraged midget for 30 minutes as we had a few years back
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Why would it be better? What's going to improve? Our scrum? Our lineout? It's not like our forwards lose the physical exchanges.
Then think about what we lose in attack. I think Creevey would be a step back, or would change the way we play.
I've seen that a bit recently "Creevey is the better hooker because of the "tight stuff"" which I think is bullshit living in the past thinking. Coles is an excellent set piece hooker with incredible attacking gifts unmatched by any other hooker. Why by rump steak when fillet is on offer?
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Coles is excellent at his core roles, the added bonus of being very good at pretty much averything els ehe is asked to do and with a running game that is unrivalled at International level, I see no upside to selecting Creevy over him.
Creevy is an outstanding player, but I'd take Coles over him.
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@gollum said in 2016 End-of-year internationals:
@MN5 said in 2016 End-of-year internationals:
Underrated ? ? ? ? He got nominated for player of the year for fucken years on end despite not exactly leading his pretty shit team to any sort of tangible rewards. If anything he's quite the opposite.
Under-rated DOWN SOUTH, up north he's viewed as one of the finest players of his generation, down in NZ he's seen as the 5th Whitelock brother
As for leading his team to tangible reward.. its kind of a 15 man game... by that standard Jonathan Davis, Gavin Hastings & Pat Lam were all shithouse too
Big Gav beat the ABs two times more than Parisse ever did ( and ever will ) albeit with the Lions and World 15.
Parisse is like BOD was, obviously good but lesser players make him look heaps better. BOD probably had 5-6 oposition midfielders playing in his era as good or arguably better than he was.
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BOD had two seasons IMO where there was no doubt he was the best centre in rugby. For the rest of them he varied between Test standard and very good.
Parisse on the other hand carries Italy. I think he'd have been genuinely brilliant if he had the benefit of New Zealand coaching.
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@reprobate said in 2016 End-of-year internationals:
always hard to judge stand-out individuals in shit teams - it's not like there is a loose forward alive that could have led italy to success given the other players in the side.
even more so in some positions - you could be a super powerful scrummaging hooker, put every dart on the money, a rampaging ball runner and a clean-out machine and still look like nothing special if the rest of your team is shit.that georgian godzilla chap, the namibian with the many broken noses and parisse would be an interesting trio to see in action - much rather see that sort of best of the minor nations team than the north vs south on the other thread.
Keith Wood was bloody good in a team that was often going backwards. As for the other two you mention are they genuinely good players or just "cult hero" types ? Not having watched much of Namibia or Georgia I'm not the best person to comment.
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You've summed it up in your last sentence. You watch fuck all rugby and claim to know just how good Parisse is and where he sits in the echelon of players?
He's nothing like bod. No one is saying he's the best. But he's not crap, he's very, very good. If he was available to NZ he'd be in every squad - you can't say that about too many overseas players...there aren't any in the Scotland team for example.
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@Bones said in 2016 End-of-year internationals:
You've summed it up in your last sentence. You watch fuck all rugby and claim to know just how good Parisse is and where he sits in the echelon of players?
He's nothing like bod. No one is saying he's the best. But he's not crap, he's very, very good. If he was available to NZ he'd be in every squad - you can't say that about too many overseas players...there aren't any in the Scotland team for example.
Standard MN5 bulshit
"I don't watch any rugby, but still find time to critisise players I've never seen on a forum dedicated to the sport"Parisse is awesome, a phenomenal athlete who would definitely have been a long term AB in my opinion
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While he's undoubtedly a very good player (very very good) would he have made a heap of teams? Read is better. And we haven't carried a 2nd out-and-out 8 in the squad all that regularly. Is he a good enough 6/7 to make the bench (seeing as Read has rarely been unavailable)?
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@mariner4life said in 2016 End-of-year internationals:
While he's undoubtedly a very good player (very very good) would he have made a heap of teams? Read is better. And we haven't carried a 2nd out-and-out 8 in the squad all that regularly. Is he a good enough 6/7 to make the bench (seeing as Read has rarely been unavailable)?
He's older than Read. He would have been battling Rodney nad hence been picked earlier than Read.
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@antipodean as a placeholder?
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@antipodean said in 2016 End-of-year internationals:
@mariner4life said in 2016 End-of-year internationals:
While he's undoubtedly a very good player (very very good) would he have made a heap of teams? Read is better. And we haven't carried a 2nd out-and-out 8 in the squad all that regularly. Is he a good enough 6/7 to make the bench (seeing as Read has rarely been unavailable)?
He's older than Read. He would have been battling Rodney nad hence been picked earlier than Read.
Back then, most of our players left for overseas if the got stuck behind someone.
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@mariner4life I'd easily pick him ahead of Messam, Luatua, Dixon, Squire...just of the last few years. While else has there been?
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@Bones that's not 100 tests though
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@mariner4life I'm not sure what that means?
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@Bones said in 2016 End-of-year internationals:
You've summed it up in your last sentence. You watch fuck all rugby and claim to know just how good Parisse is and where he sits in the echelon of players?
He's nothing like bod. No one is saying he's the best. But he's not crap, he's very, very good. If he was available to NZ he'd be in every squad - you can't say that about too many overseas players...there aren't any in the Scotland team for example.
Now come on, if Jeremy Thrush can make the ABs then Richie Gray would have walked into the team. Must be fun having time to watch lots of Georgian and Namibian games.
If Parisse is that good then the other 14 Italians must be fucken horrific players.
@SammyC I don't go out of my way to watch Italy but to me the proof is in the ( lack of ) results. Repeated nominations for player of the year in the northern hemisphere doesn't exactly indicate he's underrated. How many times has Italy made it out of the group stages in the WC while he's been playing ?
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@MN5 said in 2016 End-of-year internationals:
Keith Wood was bloody good in a team that was often going backwards. As for the other two you mention are they genuinely good players or just "cult hero" types ? Not having watched much of Namibia or Georgia I'm not the best person to comment.
agree wood was a standout in a team that was only reasonable - but ireland is not italy, and certainly not georgia or namibia.
gorgodza was voted best foreign player in france a few years back, and burger was saracens player of the year when they won the premiership a few years ago too; they're good players.
on top of that i guess it does always make me warm to a player when you see them absolutely hoeing in and laying waste to everyone they can (and themselves in the process) in games which are a total lost cause because their team is hopelessly outmatched. it's that go down fighting sort of attitude - made me change my mind about shalk burger too that. initially thought: very good player, bit dirty, whatever - but in that real rough patch the boks had he just lifted and lifted game after game, loss after loss - it was bloody heroic, and he's now an all-time great bok in my eyes. -
@Bones well the claim has been made he would play a heap of tests (100 was mentioned) but filling in for those guys you mention won't get you many.
While he's a better player than Messam there's no guarantee he would be picked as Kaino's replacement given the significant differences in how they play.
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@MN5 Yeah, I don't think I can talk about this with someone showing this much idiocy. Gray is tall, that's about it. Does fuck all else, nowhere near the workrate of Thrush. I guess it goes to show how shit a player Caucau was, that Fiji never won the world cup with him there. Your knowledge sucks bro and you're showing it.
@mariner4life I didn't make that claim?
