@Duluth said in Blues v Highlanders:

@KiwiMurph said in Blues v Highlanders:

Some serious question marks have to be asked of Tana's outside back recruitment.

He lost Li and Lam, didn't want Visinia and brought in Collins, O'Donnell and Ambrose Curtis. He also missed out on promising Northlander Solomon Alaimalo. Trainor has yet to be sighted except for the Brisbane 10s where he looked poor.

Yeah the outside back selections have been strange

Also not signing GPT at hooker. He was one of the last signings for the Highlanders. With Parsons having concussion issues, Moulds not good enough at lineout time it seems crazy not to select a good set piece hooker who has been in great form in the last two NPCs.

Last year selecting Matenga ahead of Fatialofa and Seu is unforgivable. That talent from the region is probably lost for good.

Parsons concussion issues only arose part way through npc, so there's no way you could know that was going to happen. GPT and Moulds were both wider training the previous year at the same time. They both got little to no game time. Both had good NPC seasons. They both had serious injury issues last NPC season. So really signing of Q McDondald was out of left field. Blues could have retained both.
Moulds had excellent impact off the bench v Landers and the Blues lineouts were all won from there on in.
Parsons had massive issues at line out time and he's usually bang on, so what's the issue? Probably lots of small things making a big mess.

The Silver Fern

Northlandallday