Lincoln McClutchie - 16th best 1st 5
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Lesser (in terms of experience or talent) players who are signed:
Blues: Cashmore. (I'd also argue Plummer is more a 12 than a 10, so you could have a look at their rookie midfielders, I guess)
Hurricanes: clearly Morgan; Cameron is questionable; he's injured a lot. The Canes also signed Punivai (wing), who they didn't really need.
Crusaders: signed Reihana late and an experienced foreign fullback (Halfpenny), with Burke out for a large chunk of the season. Kemara wasn't good at all for the NZ U20s, this year. Signed too early, I think.
Highlanders: Faleafaga has hardly shown anything at NPC level yet, and is probably also signed for SR too early. To offset his and often injured Miller's inexperience, they also signed a foreigner. -
@Stargazer said in Exodus:
Lesser (in terms of experience or talent) players who are signed:
Blues: Cashmore. (I'd also argue Plummer is more a 12 than a 10, so you could have a look at their rookie midfielders, I guess)
Hurricanes: clearly Morgan; Cameron is questionable; he's injured a lot. The Canes also signed Punivai (wing), who they didn't really need.
Crusaders: signed Reihana late and an experienced foreign fullback (Halfpenny), with Burke out for a large chunk of the season. Kemara wasn't good at all for the NZ U20s, this year. Signed too early, I think.
Highlanders: Faleafaga has hardly shown anything at NPC level yet, and is probably also signed for SR too early. To offset his and often injured Miller's inexperience, they also signed a foreigner.Not sure that's compelling evidence that "they" have picked inferior players.
As a counter point the little I've seen of Jacomb suggests he was deserving of a full squad spot.
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@Stargazer said in Exodus:
Lesser (in terms of experience or talent) players who are signed:
Blues: Cashmore. (I'd also argue Plummer is more a 12 than a 10, so you could have a look at their rookie midfielders, I guess)
Hurricanes: clearly Morgan; Cameron is questionable; he's injured a lot. The Canes also signed Punivai (wing), who they didn't really need.
Crusaders: signed Reihana late and an experienced foreign fullback (Halfpenny), with Burke out for a large chunk of the season. Kemara wasn't good at all for the NZ U20s, this year. Signed too early, I think.
Highlanders: Faleafaga has hardly shown anything at NPC level yet, and is probably also signed for SR too early. To offset his and often injured Miller's inexperience, they also signed a foreigner.Some of that is a function of consistent baked-in biases of the 5 super franchises and other complications:
Blues: They prefer 10/15 hybrids and are the one team that has actually spoken about adapting to a dual playmaker system over the past three years. And the elephant in the room named beauden is due back in 2025.
Hurricanes: They give most of their extra spots to midfielders and backs that can fill in for midfielders. Their focus is never on 10s tbh.
Crusaders: Their picks for 10 are a calculated gamble, bc they have a lot of experience (Heinz, Crotty, Halfpenny) directly around their tens and test players in their squad. Could work.
Highlanders: Not so much a bias in their squad selection, but more that few players want to play for them. Just looking inward.
Chiefs: It's all bet on Dmac not breaking down at the wrong time.
But some of the blame is also at the feet of promising players (backs in general). If you want to make a run for higher honours or establish yourself at Super level, 2024 is THE year to do so. By my count Kneepkens and Reihana are some of the few making sane "I want to play" decisions. The rest seem happy to continue their eternal apprenticeships.
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I'll get shot down for this, but think Bay fans have rose-tinted glasses with McClutchie. Is he the second coming of christ? No.
No one from the Bay has claimed he's the second coming of christ. If that's where you're coming from you're wilfully missing the point ...
I'm not wilfully missing the point. My point is that Hawke's Bay fans have their blinkers on with McClutchie. Every now and then there are players who shoot through the NPC and are extremely unlucky not to get Super Rugby contracts, but that sort of things has happened in all sports forever. There are always lucky player and unlucky players - there is not an issue with the Super Rugby contracting system just because McClutchie didn't get a contract.
It isn't like he is a new player, has previously spent time in camp with the Highlanders and possibly some of the other NZ sides, also ignoring that he was with MP. Several new 10s have been signed up, and they have not signed McClutchie. Considering the amount of new players signed, if teams were really interested they would have found a spot for him (Unless he turned a contract down).
Despite what some might think, the fact no team wants him tells you there is a reason why. Without evidence, I wouldn't suggest it is anything sinister, so there is obviously things in his game they don't like.
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I thought Cashmore was impressive in the NPC before getting injured. I was really pleased the Blues got him, as I thought that he would get a better offer elsewhere.
I think the boy has got a good future too Tim, got the makings of a good 10 at super level. I like when young ones like this get signed up, they are our future.
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@Stargazer said in Exodus:
Lesser (in terms of experience or talent) players who are signed:
Blues: Cashmore. (I'd also argue Plummer is more a 12 than a 10, so you could have a look at their rookie midfielders, I guess)
Hurricanes: clearly Morgan; Cameron is questionable; he's injured a lot. The Canes also signed Punivai (wing), who they didn't really need.
Crusaders: signed Reihana late and an experienced foreign fullback (Halfpenny), with Burke out for a large chunk of the season. Kemara wasn't good at all for the NZ U20s, this year. Signed too early, I think.
Highlanders: Faleafaga has hardly shown anything at NPC level yet, and is probably also signed for SR too early. To offset his and often injured Miller's inexperience, they also signed a foreigner.Not sure that's compelling evidence that "they" have picked inferior players.
As a counter point the little I've seen of Jacomb suggests he was deserving of a full squad spot.
As I understand it, Jacomb has a WTG spot, so not actually in competition with McClutchie.
Our 10s are Dmac, Ioane, and Trask. Not much room for him there.
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@Stargazer said in Exodus:
Lesser (in terms of experience or talent) players who are signed:
Blues: Cashmore. (I'd also argue Plummer is more a 12 than a 10, so you could have a look at their rookie midfielders, I guess)
Hurricanes: clearly Morgan; Cameron is questionable; he's injured a lot. The Canes also signed Punivai (wing), who they didn't really need.
Crusaders: signed Reihana late and an experienced foreign fullback (Halfpenny), with Burke out for a large chunk of the season. Kemara wasn't good at all for the NZ U20s, this year. Signed too early, I think.
Highlanders: Faleafaga has hardly shown anything at NPC level yet, and is probably also signed for SR too early. To offset his and often injured Miller's inexperience, they also signed a foreigner.Fuck it, I'll join in. That post above got me thinking where there was space when he was coming through.
He's a good footy player, but he's 24 years old, and is not the future of any of the Super teams now. How about in the past?
If he has missed out to 21-22 year olds (most of whom were in NZ U20 teams), he probably didn't quite do enough when he was called into the highlanders in 2019 (when they had Ioane, Gatland, and Banks). That may have been his opportunity, but for whatever reason, they didn't want him in 2020 (when they signed Ioane, Hunt, and Gatland).
At least, it's still not clear to any of us whether he turned down a WTG spot early in his career either. I wouldn't be surprised if he was offered one but decided to take the money in Japan instead. That's only speculation, and may have been a fair decision, but it would have definitely hurt his chances later on. There are always more 10s coming through and they may be bigger than 174cms tall and weighing 80 odd kgs.
Looking at the time when he was entering Super rugby (2019 - 2020), here were the squads in 2019:
Canes: Beauden Barrett, Jackson Garden-Bachop, Fletcher Smith
Landers: Bryn Gatland, Josh Ioane, Marty Banks
Saders: Richie Mo’unga, Brett Cameron, Mitchell Hunt
Chiefs: Damian McKenzie, Tiaan Falcon, Jack Debreczeni
Blues: Otere Black, Stephen Perofeta, Harry Plummer
So, of his age group, he was missing out to Burke who was WTG at the Saders. I think Reihana was WTG at the Chiefs. Plummer is a year older and is local to the Blues.
At that stage, he could have been a WTG member for the Canes and was called into the Landers as injury cover at some stage. He was in the Canes U20 squad though so could have been called up by them as required.
In November 2019, he signed for Japan for 2020 (it is unknown whether he turned down a WTG spot somewhere, but he had been in the Landers during 2019 at some stage), after missing out to the following in the 2020 squads:
Canes: Jackson Garden-Bachop, Fletcher Smith, James Marshall
Landers: Bryn Gatland, Josh Ioane, Mitchell Hunt (& Gilbert)
Saders: Richie Mo’unga, Brett Cameron, Fergus Burke
Chiefs: Damian McKenzie, Tiaan Falcon, Aaron Cruden, Kaleb Trask,
Blues: Beauden Barrett, Otere Black, Stephen Perofeta, Harry Plummer
When you look at those lists, there were plenty of good 1st fives around, and he seems to have just missed his opportunity at the Canes (it seems he may have had one at the Highlanders).
Burke and Reihana (and Gilbert I think) were U20s in 2019 (Trask was injured).
Reihana, Zarn Sullivan, Ruben Love, and Aiden Morgan were all named in 2020 U20 squads too, so there was more talent coming.
He was also part of the Canes U20 squad in 2019 and had his chances (starting most games from memory), and although they picked up Flanders and Toala from that group in 2020, he didn't go up.
It's all speculation, but he seems to have opportunities - he just couldn't take advantage of them.
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@Stargazer said in Lincoln McClutchie:
MP didn't chose to renew his contract
That's such a discussion killing comment. We criticise signings and selections all the time. Should we just lock the Fern and no longer question the decisions of coaches, other decision-makers and franchises?
Lol the bare faced cheek of this
The bloke who gatekeeps any criticism of so many of his personal sacred cows is basically to open the floor for a nobody because he comes from his cute little pet province.
People need to stop living in '99 and realise the NPC means fuck all
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@Stargazer said in Lincoln McClutchie:
A 10, the top points scorer of the 2023 NPC, who is hugely influential in his NPC team, creates a lot of the scoring opportunities for his team, is well-liked, and steered his team to their best NPC performance of the modern NPC didn't get a NZ SR contract.
So I'm not the only person who thought he made the Magpies look good? There weren't many five-eighths who did that consistently in the NPC. And if they can't look reasonable at that level...
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ive said ti before i would have happily taken him instead of Patchell, not necessarily because i think he wold b better but just because we might get a few years out of him and so some consistency
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@gt12 That's such an oversimplification of reality (which you may not be aware of). Just a few examples:
I think what hurt his chances was him having to turn down the NZ U20s in 2019, because of his family situation that meant he had to suppor this family financially from a young age. Possibly, those same responsibilities necessitated similar choices along the way, for example, when he played in Japan for one season.
Then there's the development pathway at the Canes, which we've criticised for years as the man in charge is Darren Larsen, who has openly admitted to never travel outside the Wellington province to watch club or school rugby and has a clear record of bias favouring players from Wellington, because they're the only players he knows. We've been complaining about him for ages. It resulted in signing and re-signing of a very average player like Jackson Garden-Bachop, and then Aidan Morgan ... It was obvious in selections at age grade and development level; McClutchie wasn't the only one missing out and the Canes have quite a long history with overlooked playeers (not just from HB) eventually going elsewhere.
McClutchie spent only about 2-3 weeks with the Highlanders as injury cover at a time the development teams didn't play anymore. So he didn't play during that time and had hardly enough time to make an impression.
McClutchie's biggest mistake has probably been rejecting a Crusaders contract in favour of Moana Pasifika, but it proves Razor thought he was good enough for a SR contract.
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@Tim said in Lincoln McClutchie:
I thought Cashmore was impressive in the NPC before getting injured. I was really pleased the Blues got him, as I thought that he would get a better offer elsewhere.
He’s a future starting 10 at Super level.
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I read through this whole thread waiting for the “gotcha” but it wasn’t forthcoming. Come on fullas, he’s a fringe player.
That’s not intended to be a slight, but when you are clearly not a starter or a definite backup in a key specialist position, franchises will have a whole range of factors to consider in making decisions on players - eg right fit, mix of ‘others’, development etc.
I get the sense he wants game time and he’ll go where he can play and play consistently.
That wasn’t going to happen at the Saders and he was clearly number 2 behind Lilo.
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thing is at times you need luck.get the break and things move .
sometimes its down to timeing age wise or what a team needs. or a coach that see what stargazer and others see. unfortuantly for LM coaches arnt seeing that.
just joins a long list of player that could have been but just didnt get that break to find out -
@Stargazer said in Lincoln McClutchie:
@gt12 That's such an oversimplification of reality (which you may not be aware of). Just a few examples:
I think what hurt his chances was him having to turn down the NZ U20s in 2019, because of his family situation that meant he had to suppor this family financially from a young age. Possibly, those same responsibilities necessitated similar choices along the way, for example, when he played in Japan for one season.
McClutchie's biggest mistake has probably been rejecting a Crusaders contract in favour of Moana Pasifika, but it proves Razor thought he was good enough for a SR contract.
Probably wouldn't admit it publically, but rejecting two NZ rugby opportunities (and one of potentially steering the Crusaders ship) would surely be a black mark. You may have answered your own question.
