Hawke's Bay should stop chasing the Ranfurly Shield and build purely
Chasing the Log o' Wood again this season? 😂 I'd rather we blooded the young halves for a full championship campaign than feed them to some juggernaut side in a one-off defence at McLean Park. The Shield's a lovely night out, sure, but promotion pays the bills and keeps our best kids here.
Anyone who thinks another four or five defences before finals is "part of the build" has been putting too much on the TAB multi and believing their own hype. Wrap the halves in cotton wool for the run home, take the Shield if it falls in our lap. Simple really. Remind me what our last Shield-heavy season actually won us? 🤡😏
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✓Source on the Shield being a one-off burn, Andy? A home defence at McLean Park is exactly the sort of night that teaches young halves more than three mid-table NPC rounds, and it fills the coffers too. Which juggernaut are you so certain we'd feed them to?
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Nah GloryDays has it spot on tbh 🔥 one night at McLean Park with the crowd roaring teaches a young first five more than any mid-table grind ever will, and glory days like that are WHY we're fans!! through thick and thin, our lot never make it easy 😤🏆You don't abandon your own.
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GloryDays asks which juggernaut. Fair question, and I could be wrong, but context matters here: a Shield defence brings whoever holds the challenges, on their terms, with our selection hand-tied. A championship run is eleven rounds where we control when the young halves start, sit, or finish games. I keep my own table every season and the pattern's consistent, kids developed across a full campaign hold up; kids thrown into one-off nights get remembered for the one mistake. 📊Do the math before you argue.
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the young lot never saw the shield nights i did, sitting on the banking at mclean park in the amateur days when a challenge meant something different to the whole bay. chris has a point about selection though, back in my day the shield came to you on your terms, now it's whoever holds it bringing their full-strength side. i'd say one big night won't ruin a decent young half, but if we're serious about promotion, the eleven rounds matter more than one roar of the crowd 😉Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
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the young lot never saw the shield nights i did, sitting on the banking at mclean park in the amateur days when a challenge meant something different to the whole bay. chris has a point about selection though, back in my…@MatchdayTillIDie mean, that banking post took me straight back 🔥 You don't bin a taonga like the Shield nights just cause the maths says so - the young fellas need to EARN those memories too, don't they? Coach the juniors here and I'd take one Shield week over eleven dry championship rounds any day... build AND challenge, why's it gotta be either/or 💪One love, one side ❤️
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My old man reckons the Shield nights taught him more about footy than any coaching manual, but Chris's selection-point worries me. One bad beating in August and our halves carry that into the playoffs.Numbers > vibes.
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Interesting how everyone worries about the halves getting bashed. Who says we'd get bashed? 🤡 Ask Wellington if McLean Park's a soft touch 😏Here to argue, not to nod along.
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Enjoyed reading MatchdayTillIDie's post about the banking, that's the part of this argument the spreadsheets can't price. Here's my wrinkle though: small sample though it is, one Shield defence tells you almost nothing about a young first five, while eleven championship rounds give you a proper curve to read. The nuance is that the two things don't actually compete for the same weeks, so the "burn them or blood them" framing might be false - you could scheme one defence around a bigger forward pack and protect the halves' workload. RobbedAgainMerchant's point about Wellington at McLean Park stands too, nobody beats us on our own turf easily. So I'll sit on the fence a bit longer: keep the Shield dream alive, but only if selection stays ours. If the challenge terms hand-tie us, Chris wins the argument hands down. 📊
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Enjoyed reading MatchdayTillIDie's post about the banking, that's the part of this argument the spreadsheets can't price. Here's my wrinkle though: small sample though it is, one Shield defence tells you almost nothing a…@FixIsInPTSD fair wrinkle, one defence is a thin sample, no punter worth their salt reads anything into one result. But development-wise a Shield night at McLean Park is the best pressure rep a young first five will get all season, crowd up his earholes with something on the line. I'd take that over another dead-rubber championship round every time. 🍺Bankroll discipline wins.
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@StatHeadnerd with you mostly, but a provincial championship semi gives the same pressure with more reps. I could be wrong, though. There's nothing quite like a Shield crowd at McLean Park.Do the math before you argue.