Who is the AB's 4th choice at 10?
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@SammyC said in Who is the AB's 4th choice at 10?:
@Chester-Draws said in Who is the AB's 4th choice at 10?:
@shark said in Who is the AB's 4th choice at 10?:
@Nepia said in Who is the AB's 4th choice at 10?:
@rotated Of those Taylor was clearly in the frame and chose to leave, Sops is all about the Benjamin’s, Blyeendraal was a bit over hyped and did nothing of note, Ihaia never found his groove, and Anscombe was an average 10 for the Blues and an ok 15 for Chiefs.
Yep spot on. Can't recall when TT left but presumably there was a queue for the 10 jumper (Carter, Barrett, Cruden, Sopoaga) and I'm pretty sure he wasn't playing a lot of 10 anyway, certainly not at Super Rugby level where Blackadder liked to use him as a thoroughly uninspiring fullback.
Tom Taylor refused to shift to the Blues, where he would have been a lock-in starter at #10. Instead he got shunted around the backline by Blackadder. Presumably he had his reasons for staying with Canterbury, but it made no sense to me.
Makes perfect sense to me. Look at what happened to Steven Brett
Nah, that's bullshit. Look what happened to Tom Taylor -- shovelled around the backline till he left the country, having never had a decent shot at making the ABs in his best positions. How'd that work out for him?
Stephen Brett's problem wasn't that he moved. It was that he wasn't as good as his boosters made out.
Maybe shifting might not have worked for Tom Taylor either. But he'll never know whether he could have made the big time with a decent run as a first choice.
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@Chester-Draws Yes I don't know why Tom Taylor didn't shift. Canterbury players are weird like that. Yes their culture is great which we hear about all the time but stuff like that is just plain stupid, similar to Dom Bird refusing to go to the Blues. They'd rather rot away on the bench or play club rugby instead of challenging themselves to benefit their careers and give the cop out excuse saying they'd rather learn off the guys starting ahead of them which gets them nowhere.
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@African-Monkey said in Who is the AB's 4th choice at 10?:
@Chester-Draws Yes I don't know why Tom Taylor didn't shift. Canterbury players are weird like that. Yes their culture is great which we hear about all the time but stuff like that is just plain stupid, similar to Dom Bird refusing to go to the Blues. They'd rather rot away on the bench or play club rugby instead of challenging themselves to benefit their careers and give the cop out excuse saying they'd rather learn off the guys starting ahead of them which gets them nowhere.
Bird went to the Chiefs so that may have been a specifically Blues thing on that occasion.
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@Nepia Most likely haha but he turned down the Blues in 2013 and ended up wasting his time in club rugby towards the end of his time at the Crusaders and then funnily enough found form once he was getting regular gametime after leaving.
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First signs of dementia for Ted.
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@Billy-Tell anyone is a possibility if they have two arms and two legs and a heartbeat
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@Nevorian said in Who is the AB's 4th choice at 10?:
@Billy-Tell anyone is a possibility if they have two arms and two legs and a heartbeat
I'm available.
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@booboo said in Who is the AB's 4th choice at 10?:
@Nevorian said in Who is the AB's 4th choice at 10?:
@Billy-Tell anyone is a possibility if they have two arms and two legs and a heartbeat
I'm available.
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Gotta agree.
I'd rather have a 3rd choice no.10 go down in a game against a minnow rather than a Test certainty like Crotty or TJP
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@sparky I don't think anyone will have any doubt Mo'unga will re-sign. Our 10-shortage increases his market value though. He's in a good negotiating position.
BB is probably already on top money (in NZ terms), but he's almost 28, so I can see him leave. All NZR can offer him is sabbaticals and out-clauses, so he can do some overseas' stints if he decides to stay. I can't see him re-sign for longer than 2 years tbh.
If I were NZR, I'd do some better scouting (in NZ). Ensure that all young, good & promising first five-eighths playing M10Cup have SR (development) contracts for the next few years, so that there's an adequate pathway for their development. Everyone who's read the Hurricanes thread, knows that that's not the case at the moment. Try converting current young fullbacks, halfbacks or second fives into 10s, at least up to "emergency standard" etc etc. I don't know what NZR are doing at the moment to increase depth, but I have the feeling they could do more.
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@Stargazer The challenge is, I think, that it takes a couple of years of training and cameo appearances, before a young first five is really ready to take the helm of a Super rugby team.
In an ideal world, our Super teams would still currently have Slade, Cruden, Barrett, Moúnga and Sopoaga as their first choice first fives - perhaps with Slade and Cruden about to take up their Euro pension jobs after the RWC - and Black and DMac having a couple of extra years of preparation in the wings. Instead, we're looking a bit thin due to being looted and, unfortunately, that's probably the case in a couple of other positions - where people like Charles Piutau, Steven Luatua, Dom Bird and James Lowe would, at a minimum, be handy options to have floating about.
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History tells us the NZ system is very good at building depth in troublesome positions so I am confident our ten stocks will sort themselves out in the next couple of years. We will be sweating about another position by then.
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Fox hints there might not be a 3rd first-five taken to the World Cup.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rugby/news/article.cfm?c_id=80&objectid=12224267
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I think we all thought that, but I reckon they'll still bring one in for RC - so in case of emergency and a replacement RWC #10 is required then at least he is not coming in totally cold - even with minimal game time in RC he'll have squad time/training time/learning the books time. And they'll train as much as they can in NZ with the team before the team goes
IMO
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@Machpants said in Who is the AB's 4th choice at 10?:
I think we all thought that, but I reckon they'll still bring one in for RC - so in case of emergency and a replacement RWC #10 is required then at least he is not coming in totally cold - even with minimal game time in RC he'll have squad time/training time/learning the books time. And they'll train as much as they can in NZ with the team before the team goes
IMO
Agreed, for me it is a four part question:
- who is next in line if BB or RM are injured out?
- if he is outside the current squad, will they bring that guy in for the RC?
- will that guy even make the RWC squad?
- if they don’t take them to the RWC, who is covering there in the minnow games/knockout if the others will recover in time for the potential final?
My guess is Banks, Yes, No, Jordie for his goal kicking (TJP is too important at 9 to be fucking around at 10)
