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RWC: Pool C - Wallabies v Fiji - Monday 18 Sep 2am AEST

dru

dru

Tim Horan (67)
qwerty51 said:
I wonder what matches people have been watching to think we can cope without Skelton.

He turns our scrum and defensive maul into the world class..
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I can't accept that Skelton single-handedly turns the quality of our scrum. Tupou may have something to do with it. That said, his previous reputation for being a scrum pot-plant is history and he justifies his scrum position behind the THP. He's been fabulous.

I think Skelton's maul-wrecking skills are sublime - but he has not been consistently applying them.

He definitely has strengths in these things, but the improvement of the team with Skelton or an alternative is not, I think, a game-breaking issue against Fiji.

OTOH loosing a starting XV player of significance, let alone the captain, well it's got to have an impact on consistency. We should be able to cope without Skleton, though much less so against the top 4. We will see in a few hours.
 
swingpass

swingpass

Peter Sullivan (51)
Qwerty, i definitely think he is very, very important, which is why he can't be risked at this time and be missing for the 1/4 and 1/2's, if he doesn't play and we lose to both Fiji and Wales then we do not deserve to be in the playoffs. i think we have adequate second row replacements, Tupou on the other hand, not really replaceable like for like.
 
Joe Blow

Joe Blow

Peter Sullivan (51)
PhilClinton said:
Yeh as much as Skelton is a good player, I don’t think he’s the reason we win or lose this game. So if the blokes calf is so dodgy he’s been given until kickoff to prove fitness, don’t bother risking it.

There has been a lot of correlation between calf injury and Achilles problems in recent years across many sports. Not worth the risk for someone his size.
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When we have beaten Fiji recently it has been without Skelton. I don’t feel his absence will be a big difference, particularly in the second half. Philip also has plenty to prove and will provide the hard edge.
 
hammertimethere

hammertimethere

Trevor Allan (34)
Our scrum without Tupou will be less of a weapon for us, but with Arnold, Frost, Hooper, Valentini and Phillip on the bench we fucking better have a massive go at disrupting their lineout. Stop their favourite attacking platform at the source. I have many horrible memories of England, NZ and SA doing this to us. 4+ lineout steals in a big test match has a massive impact on the result.
 
griffins

griffins

Bill Watson (15)
Hopefully we see a change in tactics missing 2 of our key power players. Fiji will really fancy themselves.
 
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