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I watched McDougall in the trials at Newington, playing in the Twos and I can see why you think he should have been in the GPS Ones. He's very reminiscent of the old All Black centre Bruce Robertson (you'd have to ask Mr James about him) in that he makes very good decisions, passes at the right moment (and especially not too early), yet when he has to have a go himself knows what to do.
Mind you, 12 Jarvis (Newington) playing in the GPS Ones and 13 Gilmour (Shore) subbing for Mitchell in Ones, were both very good except when combinations let them down. This is typical in trial games.
I spoke to the injured Mac Rutledge at the ground. He said that he was very disappointed to miss out on all the trials this year but that his Kings mate Mitchell, who has a catalogue of niggles, was just being rested and would be back for the Sunday game v. CHS. Mac looked like a lost soul on his arm crutches and I wished him well for an early recovery.
Casali played well except for a few dodgy lineout throws. He is reminiscent of the Oz U20 hooker, James Hanson, a real goer with the pill and is always backing up for crumbs. Intelligent too. I can see why people are touting him to be the Oz Schools rake this year, but we haven't seen the Queenslanders yet - or the rest of them.
I spent the afternoon with the Kings mafia including Peter Raffers, a long time Kings tragic, and even older than I am. Everybody came over to talk to him and, sitting next to him, I seemed to meet half the Kings staff. They didn't take exception to the fact that I was a Joeys tragic.
But back to to the trials between GPS and CAS: GPS won the Threes 48-6 and also the Twos 29-0. .
The Ones game was a different story. It was a crazy entertaining match. GPS were all over CAS in the first half and went ahead 26-3 at one stage before they dropped a ball which CAS picked up gratefully to score to make it 26-10 at half-time.
I was expecting a GPS walkover in the 2nd half but after oranges CAS came out as though they had swapped jerseys. They strangled GPS who couldn't get the pill even they had waved $50 notes at the opposition. CAS bitch-slapped GPS for most of the second half and before you knew it they were up 39-26. Crickey. Then GPS unlocked the pill and ran in 3 late tries to win 47-39.
Talk about fun !!
As you can imagine it wasn't good rugby for those who like a strong defensive game, but there weren't too many disappointed spectators who like expansive rugby.
It's hard to nominate who must have impressed the selectors - with one exception. All the backs from both teams used the ball well whenever their combinations worked, which wasn't always. Both back lines feasted on a lack of defensive cohesion and the downright poor tackling of the other team.
Selection for NSW from the players in these two teams may well go down to how well they defend in the next game. Selectors will know that Queensland will run through these players like a dose of salts unless they improve.
The most dominant feature of the game apart from the attack of both backlines was the GPS scrum; it won the CAS ball a few times and kept them in the game.
The best player on the park, and the exception I mentioned, was winger Pao Pele from Trinity. He is an ethic Islander lad who has matured ahead of most of the boys on the park and made a break just about every time he got the ball. A few times he got the pill and ran into a gang of blue jerseys and emerged on the other side as though they were never there.
Think of a young Tana Umaga in the days when he was a winger and you have the style of Pele.
He is still raw and made a few flashy mistakes but if he can improve on those he will walk into the NSW Ones. I hope I am wrong, because he is an exciting talent, but to my jaundiced eye he looked like a league player playing rugby union.
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