Quote Bullseye="Bullseye"Well we're still stuck with Jeffries. I fear Gale's stats of being the most error prone player in SL may prove to be a problem for us. Sammut adds a bit of impact but we're lacking that steadying influence. Out of Gale, Jeffries, Briggs, Sammut and Southernwood we're lacking a director of play, I hope I'm wrong but unless that lot are playing behind a pack that's dominant we'll struggle.'"
I'm not really one to call names or slag off players, I'd much rather cheer them on and hope they improve; at the end of the day they don't go out on the field trying to fail. That said, I have to say I'm a bit bewildered by the club recruitment policy around the halves.
We definitely need a half who is going to challenge the line (and look occasionally like he [imight[/i break through) or even an organiser in the Deacon mould, ideally maybe, someone with a bit of both. Undoubtedly we'll have a better idea what is going on when we find out who is [ileaving[/i as well as who is coming in.
Sammut is the one I feel most excited about; he's a very unpredictable player and will be a handful for the opposition...let's just hope we can get someone on the end of his breaks. Not sure about his defence. Maybe I've spent too much timing drooling over his attacking potential......
Gale and Briggs, I'll put together as they have similar assets and liabilities to me; both have great potential, ball in hand and both have difficulties in defence, in all honesty the thought them taking six and seven in the same side doesn't fill me with confidence as we might be spending a lot of time (and wasting energy) chasing their halves all over the field.
Southernwood for my money, isn't ready yet. I'm not going to say that's a euphemism for isn't going to be good enough though. He's still a youngster and they all develop at different speeds but unless he puts on some big improvement over the close season he's not going to be in contention for the first team any time soon.
Which, on the current assumption that Marc Herbert is away at the end of the season, leaves us with Ben Jeffries. Since he came back he's given us much as he did before, occasional superb little cameos interspersed with longer periods wondering if he's still on the field. To be honest, in my opinion, decent a player as he is, he's not really the answer to any of our problems and it does make me wonder why MP thinks he is. Still, the coach is the professional, he obviously knows more than I do, so we'll just have to wait and see how things pan out.