Aaron Cruden
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I wouldn't have Cruden anywhere near the top, In a black jersey he's had some very good games, but he struggled to nail down the jersey for any length of time - partly because Carter was around, but also because he wasn't seen as the clear 2nd. Barrett was picked ahead of him last year (even when fit), Slade edged him out in 2010/11. Sopoaga has maybe only played when Cruden was crocked (?).
Contrast Cruden & his hold over the black 10 shirt with, say Sam Cane & the black 7 (both similar in that behind a great). The second he is fit he is in. Hell even Fekitoa & the centres or Luke Romano & the reserve lock spot behind 2 greats.
Merts was undisputed top AB 10 for years at a time - with very good guys chasing him. Ditto Carter & Fox. Re the domestic dominance, Carlos was imperious domestically, big whoop, Stephen Bachop was outstanding domestically, so was Simon Mannix.
A lot of the backups of yesteryear missed out due to lack of tests played & no substitutes, as Crucial notes, Botica was outstanding but rode pine without the 20 minute cameos Barrett had to use to audition. Frano would have been outstanding off the bench in the modern era & may well have got past Fox if used that way.
If Cruden had a clear injury free run I think he might have been seen as top 3 or 4 of the last 20 years, but after having missed out there's no way to judge him based on "if only". if only Nick Evans hadn't gone overseas he'd have been a great, if only Toeava & Kahui hadn't got injured over & over again they would have been the ABs finest ever centre pairing while Ryan & Robinson would have formed the best locking combo we'd ever had etc.
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@Smudge said in Aaron Cruden:
@Steven-Harris said in Aaron Cruden:
well the nearly man played 47 x tests for his country,47 more than Chris Rattue ever played
Let's shut the forum down then, champ, because other than Shayne Philpott popping up on here again, I think we'll be battling to find any of our posters having turned out for the ABs, yet we plonk our opinions on here.
What's with the sarcasm? Rattue has copped plenty of shit on the Fern, why suddenly call out one poster?
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@Crazy-Horse said in Aaron Cruden:
What's with the sarcasm? Rattue has copped plenty of shit on the Fern, why suddenly call out one poster?
Its more the idea that Rattraes line of thinking was invalidated because Cruden had played for the ABs. IE the whole arguement was "Cruden played for the ABs therefore should not have his legacy in any way questioned!"
Which does kinda invalidate the Fern...
Personally Steves punctuation meant I never actually read his comment as I started bleeding out my ears
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@gollum said in Aaron Cruden:
@Crazy-Horse said in Aaron Cruden:
What's with the sarcasm? Rattue has copped plenty of shit on the Fern, why suddenly call out one poster?
Its more the idea that Rattraes line of thinking was invalidated because Cruden had played for the ABs. IE the whole arguement was "Cruden played for the ABs therefore should not have his legacy in any way questioned!"
Which does kinda invalidate the Fern...
Personally Steves punctuation meant I never actually read his comment as I started bleeding out my ears
"It's"
"Rattrae's"
"i.e." - to be fair, arguable
"argument"
"Steve's" -
@gollum said in Aaron Cruden:
Merts was undisputed top AB 10 for years at a time - with very good guys chasing him.
Spencer was the undisputed AB 10 in 1997 and 2003. Brown was favoured over him in 2001 - although it was close. So the most years-at-a-time you can string together is 1998-2000 probably our darkest period and likely why Smith, Mitchell then Henry went looking for other options (Spencer was also injured throughout that 98-00 period and Brown was a test rookie).
Undisputed is a hard term to throw out there given he straight up lost his spot to someone 2, maybe 3 separate times.
He had the same ownership on his jersey as someone like Byron Kelleher - was in favour for chunks of his lengthy career, but regularly was relegated to the bench after finding himself out of favour on form or stylistic reasons.
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@Duluth said in Aaron Cruden:
There's some good 10's that have come out of Australia, England, SA & France etc, but theres plenty of crap in between
Have there been plenty of good 10s?
Maybe the median rating of them is heavily skewed lower, but it's very difficult for the life of me to think of international 10s where their own fan base haven't had significant criticisms for long periods of their career interspersed with their own selectors constantly looking for younger/better options. This is especially true of guys up north even O'Gara, Michalak/Trin Duh, Jones etc.
If that is the level of good then we have produced more at and above that level than the Home Nations + Australia combined in the past 20 years.
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@rotated said in Aaron Cruden:
@Duluth said in Aaron Cruden:
There's some good 10's that have come out of Australia, England, SA & France etc, but theres plenty of crap in between
Have there been plenty of good 10s?
Maybe the median rating of them is heavily skewed lower, but it's very difficult for the life of me to think of international 10s where their own fan base haven't had significant criticisms for long periods of their career interspersed with their own selectors constantly looking for younger/better options. This is especially true of guys up north even O'Gara, Michalak/Trin Duh, Jones etc.
If that is the level of good then we have produced more at and above that level than the Home Nations + Australia combined in the past 20 years.
You need to pick some of the better ones to make your point mate. I'll grudgingly give you O'Gara but the others? Purleeeease
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@Nepia said in Aaron Cruden:
@Catogrande I wasn't actually mentioning those guys as greats, just illustrating how 10 hasn't really been a boom position for us pre the pro era as those were the few names I could think of. I was just being a bit cheeky as I thought you weren't a Kiwi.
in the pro era, there seemed to be a change of mindset, Fox, Mertens and so forth ,
Before that it was a revolving door or nobodies really , not many AB greats there to look back on ,
Interesting most of our earlier AB cult figures were forwards
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@gollum said in Aaron Cruden:
Merts had 1995 & 1996 too... So in a 9 year career 95,96,98,99,00, 01,02...
Can't think of any other AB 10 other than Fox & Carter to compare to that.
I would hesitate to give him 1996 completely given the heavy lifting that year was done by Culhane and Preston after he went down.
I'm not trying to argue Mehrts wasn't a good 10, or a significant player during that period of history or even that he wasn't the best NZ 10 of that era (although I don't think he was FWIW) - simply that he wasn't the undisputed best because he lost his spot twice to Spencer and had to platoon with Brown in 2001. That's the very definition of disputed.
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@Catogrande said in Aaron Cruden:
@rotated said in Aaron Cruden:
@Duluth said in Aaron Cruden:
There's some good 10's that have come out of Australia, England, SA & France etc, but theres plenty of crap in between
Have there been plenty of good 10s?
Maybe the median rating of them is heavily skewed lower, but it's very difficult for the life of me to think of international 10s where their own fan base haven't had significant criticisms for long periods of their career interspersed with their own selectors constantly looking for younger/better options. This is especially true of guys up north even O'Gara, Michalak/Trin Duh, Jones etc.
If that is the level of good then we have produced more at and above that level than the Home Nations + Australia combined in the past 20 years.
You need to pick some of the better ones to make your point mate. I'll grudgingly give you O'Gara but the others? Purleeeease
Better players or worse players (better examples)?
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@kiwiinmelb said in Aaron Cruden:
Slightly off topic,
For a country who has been so good at rugby , with the exception of carter , I'm not so sure we have produced the quality of 10s that you would expect from us , considering how dominant we have been overall
It's interesting. It's something I've noticed as well.
I think prior to Fox, NZ had our fullbacks do the goal kicking and punting from penalties. So we have a plethora of great 15s of their eras who had such responsibilities and therefore long test careers. 10s were just guys who had quick hands and ran on to the ball, plus could do a hurried clearance of the heavy soapy leather ball from untidy scrum and ruck ball.
Prior to the 80s. We also didn't have many great midfielders who stood out with long careers, or locks (apart from the colossus Pinetree).
Now all those positions we churn them out.
Throughout our history though we have always had a chain of great fullbacks, halfbacks, all 3 loose forwards but particularly openside.
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@rotated said in Aaron Cruden:
@gollum said in Aaron Cruden:
Merts was undisputed top AB 10 for years at a time - with very good guys chasing him.
Spencer was the undisputed AB 10 in 1997 and 2003. Brown was favoured over him in 2001 - although it was close. So the most years-at-a-time you can string together is 1998-2000 probably our darkest period and likely why Smith, Mitchell then Henry went looking for other options (Spencer was also injured throughout that 98-00 period and Brown was a test rookie).
Undisputed is a hard term to throw out there given he straight up lost his spot to someone 2, maybe 3 separate times.
He had the same ownership on his jersey as someone like Byron Kelleher - was in favour for chunks of his lengthy career, but regularly was relegated to the bench after finding himself out of favour on form or stylistic reasons.
In 1997 Spencer replaced Merhts after he got injured and his form was such that they stuck with him. But Mehrts won it back on the eoyt. Hardly undisputed.
With 2 excellent 10s over such a long period it's inevitable that one will have a better run of form than the other and vice versa. Ultimately Merhts was the preferred 10 most of the time and that says alot about how good he was particularly when considering that Carlos was bloody good too.
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@Rancid-Schnitzel said in Aaron Cruden:
@rotated said in Aaron Cruden:
@gollum said in Aaron Cruden:
Merts was undisputed top AB 10 for years at a time - with very good guys chasing him.
Spencer was the undisputed AB 10 in 1997 and 2003. Brown was favoured over him in 2001 - although it was close. So the most years-at-a-time you can string together is 1998-2000 probably our darkest period and likely why Smith, Mitchell then Henry went looking for other options (Spencer was also injured throughout that 98-00 period and Brown was a test rookie).
Undisputed is a hard term to throw out there given he straight up lost his spot to someone 2, maybe 3 separate times.
He had the same ownership on his jersey as someone like Byron Kelleher - was in favour for chunks of his lengthy career, but regularly was relegated to the bench after finding himself out of favour on form or stylistic reasons.
In 1997 Spencer replaced Merhts after he got injured and his form was such that they stuck with him. But Mehrts won it back on the eoyt. Hardly undisputed.
With 2 excellent 10s over such a long period it's inevitable that one will have a better run of form than the other and vice versa. Ultimately Merhts was the preferred 10 most of the time and that says alot about how good he was particularly when considering that Carlos was bloody good too.
Its interesting how times have changed, then it was one or the other ,
Now it would be Mertins starting , Carlos coming on later providing impact
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@Rapido said in Aaron Cruden:
Throughout our history though we have always had a chain of great fullbacks,
Except between Karam and Gallagher.
We couldn't find a decent fullback to save ourselves (Bevan Wilson might have been good but was injured and eventually we came up with Hewson who was a terrible defender, but otherwise serviceable and were almost too scared to dispense with him given the disasters that had preceded him - like Farrell, Fawcett, Currie, Richard Wilson, Duncan Robertson, Codlin...).
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@Chris-B. said in Aaron Cruden:
@Rapido said in Aaron Cruden:
Throughout our history though we have always had a chain of great fullbacks,
Except between Karam and Gallagher.
We couldn't find a decent fullback to save ourselves (Bevan Wilson might have been good but was injured and eventually we came up with Hewson who was a terrible defender, but otherwise serviceable and were almost too scared to dispense with him given the disasters that had preceded him - like Farrell, Fawcett, Currie, Richard Wilson, Duncan Robertson, Codlin...).
Pray, do tell, who he should have been dispensed for? Some bloke called Robbie?
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@Chris-B. said in Aaron Cruden:
@Rapido said in Aaron Cruden:
Throughout our history though we have always had a chain of great fullbacks,
Except between Karam and Gallagher.
We couldn't find a decent fullback to save ourselves (Bevan Wilson might have been good but was injured and eventually we came up with Hewson who was a terrible defender, but otherwise serviceable and were almost too scared to dispense with him given the disasters that had preceded him - like Farrell, Fawcett, Currie, Richard Wilson, Duncan Robertson, Codlin...).
Crowley wasn't so bad.
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@rotated Just listing those guys and saying if that's the level of good..
Those blokes are certainly not the stand out 10s in the NH during the professional era:
In no particular order, Jonathan Davies, Wilkinson, Townsend, Sexton, Farrell (gonna cause some comment), Andrew (TBH I'd bracket him with O'Gara).
