On form at the moment there is nothing between Newsome and Rona; that's a coin toss. But Naiyaravoro HAS to come in to 11 to supply some midfield starch because we do not have effective hard-running forwards. Big T should be running on Foley's inside shoulder on every play. Even if the big backrowers get to him we should make it across the gainline and be on the front foot. If he gets one Foley pass in every three the Rebels' defenders will not know whether to slide or not, which will give Beale, Foketi and Folau room to run.
The front row should divert to the design, ie Robertson, Latu, Kepu with Ryan, Fitzpatrick and Vui on the bench. Latu to spend the week practising his throwing.
The back five is problematic whichever combination you choose. I would choose Simmons, Palmer, Hanigan, Wells and Hooper as the guys with the best form to date, though I would tell Hooper to go hard this week because he's only getting 50. Finishers would be Staniforth, Meafua and Miller on a 6:2 bench. The locks need to forget ball carrying, they're terrible at it, their job is to tackle everything that moves and act as cleaners on attack.
Miller covers Gordon till 50 and then goes to open side. Hegarty covers inside backs, the loser of the coin toss for outside. If they work Big T as hard as they should he'll be out of gas by 60 mins. I am assuming Phipps won't be back till after the bye, if he's back he can replace the outside back bench player as he's fast enough to play wing, or can replace Gordon if injured.
Because Gibson doesn't understand the need for power in the forwards, and therefore recruits powder-puff workhorses only, we were screwed months ago. This team is the best we can do, given the available cattle
) earlier this year, especially the tight five. Whomever the scrum expert is this year (Cron?) he's got his work cut out.
