Beauden Barrett at fullback is a luxury we can't afford anymore
Been saying this for ages and getting treated like I've lobbed a carton of speights at the sacred board. Beauden at 15 was a novelty three years ago, now it's just habit. Every bloke who covers him for work gets how this goes, you don't put your most expensive tool on the scaffold roof and wonder why the floor never gets built.
That Crusaders game proved it, we lost by three and half the confusion came from him drifting into first receiver and nobody knowing who ran where. You'd get better odds at the TAB on him staying in one position for a season than on us winning a title with this shuffle. Pick a proper 15, put Beaudy back at ten, and if anyone disagrees I'll happily take their money on it 😏
7 posts
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✓Mate, I get where you're coming from about the revolving door at the back, but calling it just "habit" feels a bit dismissive of the setup we've built recently. The system works when executed, and suggesting we scrap the fullback position outright based on memories of chaos is a huge claim. Show me the concrete stats where the combination of Beauden at 15 failing outright consistently, not just having a few games of instability.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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Nah Robbed, the Crusaders game proved it, Beaudy drifting into first receiver from fullback and we still lost by three 😤 Put him at ten, pick a real 15, settle the backline! 🔵You don't abandon your own.
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I kept a note of that Crusaders match because the pattern bugged me too. Beaudy drifting into first receiver from fullback meant our actual ten was standing flat and redundant while the whole backline got its calls second-hand, and we still lost by three with all that shuffle going on. Pick a proper 15, give Beaudy the ten jersey for a full block of games, and judge it after eight rounds rather than one. 📊Do the math before you argue.
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i remember when we were all fussing over the fullbacks in the am days and how much harder it was to find a consistent specialist for every role. i reckon that constant shuffling around the back, even with big names like beaudy, just eats up the energy of the whole team. there was always a rhythm when the backline knew exactly what their jobs were, and we just weren't getting that settled stuff recently.
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hmm, i watched that crusaders night too and beaudy from fullback nearly pulled it off. seen worse shuffles than that, honestly. pick the right 15 by all means but leave beaudy where the game flows through him. ah well, we'll seeSeen it all, lads.
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Chur Gary, you've sparked a decent scrap here. Small sample caveat though, one Crusaders night is thin evidence either way, I'd want to see how the first-receiver drift shows up across a few matches before writing the 15 experiment off entirely. That said, my gut agrees with TaurangaBro, the ten standing flat while calls go second-hand just looks wrong. Keep it going, I'm genuinely torn 📊Numbers > vibes.