Yeah, I am surprised how well Pyle and Campbell have gone. But that's largely 'it' for our Aussie lock stocks; we have Luke Jones (but he seems more like a 6 to me) and that kid who was in schoolboys last year, used to play for Scotch, but he's raw as.
Byrnes is a perfectly decent player and isn't particularly old, he could be around for a while. He seems to have fallen out of the coach's favor though, perhaps his penalty count pisses them off.
The Scotch lock is a while off I think, at least 3 years. He should of done with the Skevs/Syd Uni No8 did and go straight to Sydney, he's killing it in the Shute Shield at 19 and he's as Victorian as they come.
I'm pretty sure that if we're going to move on either Hoani McDonald or Kevin O'Neil, by choice it would be McDonald. We have much better cover for our backrow in my mind than we do for 2m tall locks.
True, wouldn't Scott Fardy be a great replacement for the lock/6 role. See abc iView if you need to understand my reasoning.
Speaking of Jones. As I see him as more of a backrow option, where do people see him fitting in? Is he the replacement for Gareth Delve when he leaves? Does he come in at 6 and Jarrod Saffy moves to 7 (I've noticed Saffy doing a lot more pilfering recently)?
He'll be playing lock in this year's U20 WC but he's probably a 6 but a lock in a pinch, think Mitch Chapman. Unless he fills out substantially I think he'll be knocked around too much at 8 off the back of a scrum.
That raises the interesting question of Michael Lipman. The bloke is Australian by birth, but English by representation. He can't legitimately play Super 15 for an Australian team unless they use their marquee contract on him. Thus there is a quandary of what happens if he has moved back to Aus permanently and would like to keep playing Rugby. From what we've seen this year, he certainly is 'good enough' to play Super Rugby.
He has been great but he is old as. I'd say his replacement would be the Rebel Rising/Southern Districts open sider, he looks good and is about 21.
