South Africa tour (and squad)

Would love to see Higgers replace brown. Would love to see Quade replace Gitau and Gitau replace Barnes on the bench with a five two split. Would love to see Slipper start and Mafu on the bench.

Mandella Plate is still up for grabs. Lets bring it home.

Deans needs to take the opportunity to take a new squad (even though we know he won't)
Agree re:- Ma'afu but Kepu has been struggling for the Wicks, Tilse a bit better for Uni. If I had to pick a pro from Club ranks it would be either Shepherdson who is looking fitter than I have seen him ever or Nic Henderson.
Agree re:- Brown. No comment needed posted elsewhere.

Giteau. He is not a 10. Barnes should be played at 10 before Giteau. Giteau offers nothing from 10, if he doesn't play 12 he doesn't start IMO. How much of Genia's hesitation at the ruck is due Giteau giving him no options unless it is a set play?

You are right about Giteau. His brain isn't working fast enough (or is it instinct) to play 10. No options and no creativity.

However Genia just sucked. He still has a good pass, but at times he looked asleep out there. He was struggling to keep up.

Gimmie a Mandela Plate and 2nd place in the 3 Nations please.

News on Hynes? O'Connor looks out of it on the wing, would love to see Hynes back. A good old specialist winger would do wonders.

Genia's got to do a lot of work to do I think. A week playing club footy I think should do the trick. His service was very annoyingly slow.

KB deserves another crack at fullback, he was pretty good last night.

Thank fu*k that Cooper's back, I think a call up to Toomoua to Fly half would have been the best option.

Take Faingaa/s. They are worthy of a spot.

Chief, you are spot on. We have the Mandela Plate to play for and I hope the boys go over there with the intent of wresting it back from the Boks. The Bleddie will have to wait for next year, but I would like for us to win at least one test against the AB's this year.

The backs will sort themselves out when Cooper is back and Kurtley has done enough to stay at FB. Genia can use the next couple of weeks to shake off whatever injury he is carrying (that knee really hasn't been right since late in the S14) and hopefully Hynes might be available.

Our issues are in the back row however. Much as it pains me to say this, but Brown is cooked. Higgers needs to come into the starting lineup and Hodgson needs to start, with Rocky playing at 8. Simmons to replace Mumm and Slipper to replace Ma'afu.

Agree to all, chief. If Hynes is unavailable, would Lachie Turner be worth packing? I think he'd be a better option than JO'C on the wing.

Ant Faingaa should definitely be taken.

1. Robinson
2. Faningaa
3. Ma'afu
4. Simmonds
5. Sharpe
6. Mumm
7. Pockock
8. Elsom
9. Burgess
10. Coop-ahh
11. Mitchell
12. Gits
13. AAC
14. Turner
15. Beale

16. Moore/Fitzpatrick
17. Slipper
18. McCalman
19. Hodgson
20. Genia
21. Barnes/Faingaa
22. JOC


I can see this team beating the boks, keep in mind we only need to beat them once to get the Mandela plate back.

Also Robbie deans has somehow fit 4 fullbacks into the squad this week.

Agreed with the team and I think Turner on the wing is a more solid proposition that JOC at the moment. Still don't know why he wasn't in the squad already, surely 7's can't have that much sway?

I for one am very, very interested to see how the Bokke play at home this year. I think they're very likely to be a different side, mostly because I think they can't possibly play as one-dimensionally and generally poorly as they did over this way.

My team I would like to see for the Saffa tests:-

1. Robo
2. Faingaa
3. Slipper
4. Mumm
5. Sharpe
6. Hodgson
7. Pocock (only if fully fit if not Hodgo can cover him very well and Higger goes to six)
8. Elsom/Hodgeson
9. Genia (the more I look at the game the more I think Genia's issues were due to Giteau providing no options and the ABs knowing this.)
10. Cooper
12. Faingaa
13. AAC
11. Mitchell
14. Turner/Shepherd
15. Beale

16. Moore
17. Ma'afu (there really is nobody else except maybe Shepherdson)
18. Simmons
19. McCalman
20. Burgess
21. Barnes (covering 10/12)
22. Shepherd

Note No Giteau and no Brown. Giteau misses out because his form is poor (he showed glimpses of what he could do at 12 but that is it) and he is NOT a 10. Not even as a sub.
Brown no explanantion needed.

No JOC he just hasn't done anything and there are better options at fullback and 12.

Cooper.

If this is a major issue then Barnes can come on. Statistically both are almost as good as Giteau. The third choice is Shepherd who has kicked before.

You might not think so, but I would like to hear why you would drop him.

More concearned with tactics than selections. No players have impact because no players hit the line at pace. It is all flat footed crap. No amount of selection changes will change that unless it is dealt with tactically. Where we punch up to the line has no variety and we are very predictable. The Reds did a good job of mixing it up between one pass wide or two passes wide of the ruck. It forced defences to fan out more. The All Blacks were allowed to stay compressed and it hurt by limiting Genia and having mass numbers of All Black forwards on the spot to counter ruck the shit out of our ball.

Up on the high veldt for these next two tests we need to tactically go with a 5:2 split on the bench. Run the tank empty and substitute our forwards. Robbie must embrace his bench more. Maintaining the intensity may not wear the Boks down but I am confident it will force errors.

Speaking of errors, our basic skill error rate is woeful. Deans is right to expect players to be taking responsibility for their individual skills. To me it is clear who has done this and who has not.

A test 8 must be able to clear the ball from the scrum even under pressure. He is incapable of breaking any tackle. His defence is very average. A test 8 must be able to make metres with ball in hand and he is a very poor carrier of the ball rarely breaking the gainline and often tackled behind it.

In the last two tests he has done two psoitive things of note, 1 a turnover after the ABs broke up the centre. One he got about 5 metres over the gain line.

Well Sharpe was dropped mid Tri nations in 2008 so why not Ma'afu, I want Greg Holmes to come in at Tighthead.
22 I'd like to see in SA.

1.Robinson
2.Faingaa
3.Holmes
4.Mumm
5.Sharpe
6.Elsom
7.Pocock
8.Hodgson
9.Genia
10. Cooper
11. Drew Mitchell
12.Faingaa
13.AAC
14.Shepherd
15.Beale

Res 16.Moore 17.Slipper 18.Simmons.19.McCalman 20.Burgess 21.Giteau 22.Hynes

You could even go a 5/2 split & drop Burgess with Giteau covering halfback but I can't think of any forwards that are going to make a huge impact inside 20-30 minutes of play.