Blues v Sharks
-
Blues
1 Pauliasi Manu, 2. James Parsons ©, 3. Mike Tamoaieta, 4. Patrick Tuipulotu, 5. Josh Goodhue, 6. Jerome Kaino, 7. Murphy Taramai, 8. Akira Ioane;
9 Jonathan Ruru, 10. Stephen Perofeta, 11. Melani Nanai, 12. Rieko Ioane, 13. George Moala, 14. Jordan Trainor,15. Michael Collins.Reserves: 16. Leni Apisai, 17. Ross Wright, 18. Sione Mafileo, 19. Jimmy Tupou, 20. Kara Pryor, 21. Sam Nock, 22. Bryn Gatland, 23. TJ Faiane
Players not considered because of injury: Otere Black (knee), Blake Gibson (shoulder), Glenn Preston (calf), Matt Moulds (ill), Sonny Bill Williams (hand), Augustine Pulu (foot), Alex Hodgman (arm), Scott Scrafton (leg).
Blues Rugby
The official home of the Blues rugby team. Buy tickets and merchandise, get the latest news, view results and go behind-the-scenes with our players.
-
-
@tim Rieko has played 12 before - he played 12 for NZ Schoolboys iirc.
Really looking forward to seeing how 9 and 10 go.
Other than Pryor there isn't a lot of impact on that bench. Apisai keeps getting chances despite being poor every time he has appeared this season......
-
-
Taking the boy to this. Stoked Perofeta is starting, really exciting prospect.
-
@kiwimurph said in Blues v Sharks:
@tim Rieko has played 12 before - he played 12 for NZ Schoolboys iirc.
Really looking forward to seeing how 9 and 10 go.
Other than Pryor there isn't a lot of impact on that bench. Apisai keeps getting chances despite being poor every time he has appeared this season......
Sio Tomkinson was at 12 for NZ Schools, Rieko was at centre.
He has played a bit of 12 before though. He played a season for Grammar at 12 when he was 5th form, but moved out to centre after that year, so he does have some experience there, but it's been awhile. I think he'll go OK there because he has all the tools for the position, but ideally you want him out on the edges because of his pace and ability in space.
-
-
@dice Goodhue is very good in the air, but then he is pretty inexperienced at this level.
-
@bovidae said in Blues v Sharks:
If Moala was at 12 Ioane wouldn't get the ball anyway!
This is what made me laugh when I saw Rieko at 12. The coaches are basically admitting that Moala won't get the ball to Rieko, so to nullify that, they'll just move Rieko in one.
Now to get the ball to the outside backs, we're going to need Rieko to throw some cut out balls.
-
@taniwharugby said in Blues v Sharks:
@dice Goodhue is very good in the air, but then he is pretty inexperienced at this level.
Yeah, I was going to mention his ability in the air, but he's unproven at this level. He did go well in pre-season though.
-
-
Where is Tu'ungafasi?
-
@kiwimurph his physicality is something I thought improved last NPC, our lineout was always better when he was there, didn't he captain the dev side earlier this year too?
But then this is a kid who turned down a Super rugby and NPC contract as he didn't feel he was upto it a few years ago, so seems to have his head screwed on, he just needs to take his chances now.
-
@no-quarter He and Duffie are having one of their two rest weeks.
-
@tim said in Blues v Sharks:
@no-quarter He and Duffie are having one of their two rest weeks.
With Jordie fit again, and NMS still to come back, I don't see Duffie getting close to the AB's this year
-
@stockcar86 Duffie hasn't reached his 2017 form yet either. Plenty of time left in the season but he's had a slowish start.
-
@dice said in Blues v Sharks:
@kiwimurph said in Blues v Sharks:
@tim Rieko has played 12 before - he played 12 for NZ Schoolboys iirc.
Really looking forward to seeing how 9 and 10 go.
Other than Pryor there isn't a lot of impact on that bench. Apisai keeps getting chances despite being poor every time he has appeared this season......
Sio Tomkinson was at 12 for NZ Schools, Rieko was at centre.
He has played a bit of 12 before though. He played a season for Grammar at 12 when he was 5th form, but moved out to centre after that year, so he does have some experience there, but it's been awhile. I think he'll go OK there because he has all the tools for the position, but ideally you want him out on the edges because of his pace and ability in space.
Please tell me you're not serious about that...
