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Chilla Wilson (44)
Has Deans miss the boat? Looking at the selection problems we're having replacing a winger when we have AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper), JO'C, McCabe, Mitchell and with some people suggesting Horne something must be awry. We've got Drew Mitchell, potentially the best winger in the world pre-injury and yet we are hesitant to bring him straight into the starting side. Why is this? Quade Cooper's ghost-like defence. Clearly the main issue is not replacing Digby's attack, even if the replacement is less potent, but rather replacing him in defence. This is not a simple issue given Digby has spent the last 6 months (probably more) protecting Quade and no replacement for Digby will be as comfortable heading into the 10 channel instead of to their wing. Drew Mitchell hinted at his preference (in one of the podcasts) to being on the wing in defence rather than in the 10 channel as he believes the back 3 should be given every opportunity to counter-attack. Something which we might be seeing in the decline of Kurtley Beale as a counter attacking weapon from full back as he is moved to the wing due to Quade moving back. Has anyone else noticed how Kurtley has been less effective, with seemingly less space to move in this year?
So my question is, has dingo missed the boat? Are we stuck trying to cover Quade's inadequacies when Dingo should have dropped him last year and told him to learn how to tackle or f#ck off out of the 22? Sure it meant we would have had some games with Berrick at 10 and most likely JO'C at 12 (git's had already started to fall out of favour) but I would have seen this as a positive thing. We might have lost some tests but we would have a 10 who could defend, some time for Berrick at 10 as the main backup, some game time for JO'C at 12 which we all want to see and would also help his defence and most importantly we would have a team that would play like One Team, not One Team Protecting One Man.
So my question is, has dingo missed the boat? Are we stuck trying to cover Quade's inadequacies when Dingo should have dropped him last year and told him to learn how to tackle or f#ck off out of the 22? Sure it meant we would have had some games with Berrick at 10 and most likely JO'C at 12 (git's had already started to fall out of favour) but I would have seen this as a positive thing. We might have lost some tests but we would have a 10 who could defend, some time for Berrick at 10 as the main backup, some game time for JO'C at 12 which we all want to see and would also help his defence and most importantly we would have a team that would play like One Team, not One Team Protecting One Man.