Recent content by Wilson

Every one of those categories you've listed as 'no change' look stronger by virtue of the extra years experience those players have, and have together. Back row as well looks to have taken a step forward given Wright's unavailability last year, Brial's step up, and better coverage from some of...

Super head coach probably does, though it's probably much more variable depending on the experience you bring. But I think it's also a question of advancement - you can go from Super head coach to just about any coaching job (with enough success on the board), but without a top flight head...

Pretty sure Lachlan Lonergan did his ACL in the Lions game and will probably miss a decent chunk of the season. Might be some questions over Schoupp's return too, but he should be good to go sooner.

So much is going to come down to injury management, and the somewhat uncontrollable nature of it. The last two seasons have seen large swathes of the squad out injured at key time, particularly last season when there was a fair chunk of the salary cap sitting on the sideline and injuries 3 or 4...

He wanted to see out his commitments - which means doing the job he signed on to do, or ensuring that the Reds were adequately compensated if he left early.

It's a contractual obligation but if he really wanted out early it would've happened. As it stands nothing has really changed - yes RA are flush with cash for now, but none of that is unexpected, and if anything the cost to get him out of his contract will have gone up, because it will be a lot...

Yes, unless you can present a compelling case for an alternative which I don't think you have at all. Remember it's not just RA that picked this timeline, but Les Kiss as well who decided not to run dual roles. Benefit in his input, but not trying to do two jobs at once. A bad tour really...

This all just sounds like you "picking at the bandaid", without much thought (or knowledge) of what the actual planning is.

He's playing against players who are on average 2-3 levels better than he was in the NPC. It massively reduces the time he has to make decisions and he ends up making the wrong ones more often, or even worse, getting caught before he's made them. Even when he does make decent choices the...

I don't think the money is there for him in Super unless the Wallabies are chipping in and I can't see that as being for anything but a 12 where Crichton is concerned. If RA were willing to spend that on a back rower beyond what they've already got there's a lot of better options out there...

He'd be good to have in the setup but I don't think McKellar has much interest in coming in as an assistant at this stage, I imagine he'd prefer to wait it out and take the top job if things don't go well at the world cup. It might also be "too many cooks" to have another guy that was ostensibly...

It is to some degree, Kiss was with the side for a while in Europe. This hardly seems like a good reason to abandon the plan and indulge the public desire to "pick at the bandaid". Better to focus on doing it right. There's a reason Kiss didn't take dual roles as was initially floated, he felt...

I think they've still got a couple of generations of "Hong Kong born" (or parent/grand parents Hong Kong born) players they can call in playing pro around the world. World cup qualification will definitely help lure some in, though they'll need to back it with money and intent. Being in the...

Given it's based on the regional competitions they play in I think they'd have to continue as part of the pacific. Having them there definitely makes sense logistically, but it does make that one Asian qualifier spot seem a bit ridiculous now. You could theoretically run it as a play off with...

I don't think that early switch would be particularly helpful, given the disruption at the Reds would probably end up off setting the gains at the top in a period where the Wallabies coach isn't really hands on. Better to look at ways of accelerating the transition in that Nations Cup period...