Be honest, mates. This Canterbury side would struggle to make the
Honest question for the romantics in here: which current Canterbury forward walks into that 2017 matchday 23? Take your time, I'll wait 😏 Whitelock and Crotty were stacking Ranfurly Shield defences while this mob has managed one NPC title in going on a decade. The drop-off is real and half of you know it, you just can't say it out loud because nostalgia feels nicer.
Or maybe the whole provincial game has moved on and we're all grading this side against a memory, who knows. Funny thing is the TAB had us as outsiders most weeks last season and the market made more sense than half the takes in this thread. So go on, tell me, players gone soft, or just everyone else caught up while we slept? 🤡💸
18 posts
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✓Honest question for the romantics in here: which current Canterbury forward walks into that 2017 matchday 23? Take your time, I'll wait 😏 Whitelock and Crotty were stacking Ranfurly Shield defences while this mob has man…Maybe none walk straight in, but the 2017 side had a full pro nucleus. Super depth this lot never got. One title in nine years says system, not pedigree.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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Watched these juniors live at Rugby Park and they play way harder than that mob get credit for 🔥 Give them Whitelock's pedigree and they're stacking shield defences too, nah doubt it...You don't abandon your own.
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RobbedAgainHater318 is onto something and I've got the table to back it. 📊 I've tracked squad turnover per season since 2017, and the current Mob have churned through something like double the player churn of the mid-2010s sides - that's the provincial ecosystem now, kids signed to Super rosters before they've strung together ten NPC starts. Whitelock and Crotty had three, four seasons of unbroken Canterbury game time before anyone called them finished articles. This lot barely get six weeks together before the next call-up tears the midfield apart. So when someone asks which forward walks into that 2017 23, the honest answer is probably none on pedigree, but small sample though, we've had what, two genuinely settled seasons since the last rebuild? Give a coach two full campaigns with the same tight five and I'd want to see the numbers again before writing the whole generation off. The system moved on around us, mate, and our expectations haven't caught up.
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Back in my day you'd front up to Lancaster Park on a cold Wednesday and the same mob would hold the shield for two seasons running, Whitelock, Crotty, that whole crew grew up together, played together, knew each other's games blind. These days the kids are gone to Super contracts before they've had a full NPC season together. Seen worse sides than this current one, mind, but you can't build a dynasty on a squad that never stays put. 😉Been here longer than some have followed.
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Nah Gary, which 2017 forward walks into a 2025 squad built around Super contract churn? 😅 That lot kept each other for five seasons, we're lucky to keep a lad two... underdog? smh. FixIsInPTSD's table says it all tbh 🔥One love, one side ❤️
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ha, you young lot crack me up with your tables and churn percentages 😄 FullbackNut, mate, you've missed the point entirely. Nobody's saying the kids don't play hard. Of course they do, they're Canterbury juniors, that's in the blood. But holding the shield for two seasons running like that old crew did, that's a different animal altogether. I sat on the grass at Lancaster Park watching Whitelock and Crotty grow into men together, and what they had couldn't be measured on FixIsInPTSD's spreadsheet, it was knowing your second rower's lineout call before he made it. Thing is, we kept those lads because there was nowhere else to go. Now every promising loose forward's got a Super contract dangled at him by 19 and he's off to Auckland or Dunners before he's played 20 games in the red and black. That's the real change, and no table captures it. Watch as long as I have and you'll see it plain as day 😄Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
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Sounds good but I keep asking the same question: two seasons together teaches combination, so what's the excuse for the defences falling apart by round six every year? Sam Whitelock and Crotty didn't need a churn table to make their tackles stick. Until someone shows me receipts that this mob's fundamentals are actually solid, I'll stay sceptical about the whole "ecosystem changed" comfort blanket.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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MatchdayTillIDie has it right in my view, the effort was never the issue. I could be wrong, but I'd add one caveat: Paul_Fan, some of those 2017 tackles stuck because Whitelock and Crotty called the defensive line for each other since schoolboy days, and no round-six slump fixes that without a decade of combinations. I keep my own round-by-round table and the pattern is clear: we lose structure late in halves, which reads like experience leaking out of the squad, not fitness. 📊Do the math before you argue.
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Cute churn theory, but I'd slap NZ$50 on the TAB that Whitelock and Crotty fix a round-six defence by half-time 😏 It was the players, fellas. Always was.Here to argue, not to nod along.
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Easy to talk big on Whitelock and Crotty when they're retired, mates 😤 half our lot now are kids the 2017 boys never had to blood. Different game, different NPC 💪
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Careful there, Vet. I've been watching this club since the amateur days and every generation says "different game" when the trophies dry up 😄 Whitelock and Crotty were kids once too, and they got blooded properly instead of being churned out the door. back in my day the red and blacks made finished players out of raw country lads, that was the whole point of Canterbury.Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
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FixIsInBeliever has a point, but I'd push back slightly on the "blooding properly" line. Whitelock and Crotty weren't just given games - they came into a squad where senior internationals actually stayed put for three or four seasons. The system around them was stable, so handing debuts to teenagers was low-risk. Who's the current equivalent holding the door open? Genuine question, because if the answer is nobody, then churn is a symptom rather than the disease. And Vet, "different NPC" cuts both ways. Every province plays under the same rules and the same salary realities, yet Tasman and Hawke's Bay keep finding ways to overachieve with budgets that would embarrass us. So when the trophies dry up and rivals with less do more, "the game moved on" starts sounding like an excuse.
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GloryDays nailed it, I reckon. I keep my own spreadsheet every round and the retention column is what jumps out at me, those 2017 squads had continuity you could measure, whereas the current mob turns over a third of the roster before the business end. I could be wrong, but I'd say the churn costs us more in defence systems than raw talent ever did. That said, my caveat: blooding only works if the kids get senior voices around them. I coached schoolboy rugby here for a few years and the ones who kicked on were always the lads training next to a grizzled Lock who'd held the Shield twice. We've got some promising young forwards now, but who's the mentor? That's the gap no churn theory explains away. 📊Do the math before you argue.
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GloryDays nailed it, I reckon. I keep my own spreadsheet every round and the retention column is what jumps out at me, those 2017 squads had continuity you could measure, whereas the current mob turns over a third of the…@FrontRowFan churn before the finals is exactly why I stopped putting Canterbury in my weekend multis - the TAB line never seems to account for a side fielding half a new backline. Continuity wins you the tight margins, and tight margins are where my NZ$ live 😭🔥Bankroll discipline wins.
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FrontRowFan's spreadsheet matches what I've been tracking too, I could be wrong, but the churn before the business end is the single biggest variable in my retention column. The nagging question for me is whether that churn is a choice by the union or just the market we're in now, because Whitelock and Crotty stayed because the environment let them, and I'm not convinced the current lot are being denied that so much as nobody's building it. Depends how you count it, really 📊
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@NickDiehard whether it's the coach's call or upstairs doesn't change my maths, either way that churn has burnt me too many Saturdays to trust them at the line again. Kept them out of my multis this season and the bankroll thanked me. Question is whether the punter dollar ever moves the line enough to make them worth another look.The line moves — catch it.
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FixIsInBeliever has a point, but I'd push back slightly on the "blooding properly" line. Whitelock and Crotty weren't just given games - they came into a squad where senior internationals actually stayed put for three or…@GloryDays_4Life spot on mate, that's the bit everyone skips 🔥 coached the juniors here for years and you can see it, young fellas blooded into a settled squad grow quick, blooded into a rotating one just learn to survive. We've chucked half a fresh backline in cold and wondered why the margins kill us 💔One love, one side ❤️