Honest question, fam: is our set-piece actually good enough to win a
Honest answer? We're outscoring our own scrum, plain as day. Fourteen scrum penalties in three games, and even the Crusaders win was us holding the front row together with duct tape and prayers. That doesn't survive a final where refs tighten everything up and there's no 30-point shootout to hide behind.
And yeah, I'll say the spicy bit: blood the young prop from Nadi NOW. Waiting till playoffs to give him his first real minutes is how you feed a kid to the Crusaders pack and ruin him in one afternoon. Play him while the games still mean something but the pressure hasn't maxed out. Anyone saying "keep the experienced boys till finals" has watched us get monstered at scrum time three weeks running and learned nothing 😏
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✓Hard to argue the duct tape bit, but the tape's been holding for three wins, hasn't it. My worry is playoff refs reset every half-imploded scrum until something pops, and by then the young fella from Nadi needed two full games of game time, not one cameo. Blood him now on condition that the loosehead cover actually exists.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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Blood the young fella NOW I say 💪 you just know playoffs refs will punish that scrum harder. Better he learns on us than chokes under finals pressure, ah well, nowt to do 🔥On the terraces since I was a kid.
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I keep my own running sheet every round, and the scrum penalty column is the one that's been climbing all month: 14 in three matches works out to nearly five a game, and that's with the duct-tape front row surviving the Crusaders win. The tape has held, fair point from Robbed, but the trend line only bends one way, and finals refs won't forgive it. Better to find out now whether the young fella from Nadi can hold his end at this level. Here's my thinking on the timing: one cameo teaches him nothing about playoff scrum resets, and two full games of senior minutes between now and the post-season is exactly what he needs. Give him 60 minutes this week, start him the week after, and if the penalty count against us drops even two a game, that's your answer. My tables say a scrum bleeding five penalties a match loses you a final on its own, small sample though it is. Blood him now, Harry's got this one right. 📊Numbers > vibes.
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Seen worse, fellas, back in my day every forward pack in the country cycled through a shaky prop or two before the big games, and the good sides still found a way. That's why I reckon blood the young fella from Nadi now; playoffs refs were ruthless back then and they haven't softened since 😉Watch as long as I have and you'll get it.
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Doubt the "duct tape" crowd tbh, we won those games, didn't we? 😤 One dodgy cameo won't fix five penalties a game anyway, fix the binds, blood him properly 💪🔥One love, one side ❤️
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Millie, the wins paper over it because nobody's made us pay yet, playoff refs go whistling early, ask any side that limped in with a creaky front row. I'll believe the scrum's fine when I see it against a proper pack, and the Crusaders game showed we survived rather than competed. Blood the Nadi fella now while a mistake costs nothing.Sample first, conclusions after.
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Ultra88 has got it right, and I'd add one thing from my table: five penalties a game is roughly a three-point swing every match come playoff time, and the margins there are razor thin. Blood the Nadi fella now, in a game we can absorb his mistakes, because you can't trial a prop against a ref who's already whistling early. I could be wrong, but I'd rather see the teething problems in round ball than in a final. 📊Do the math before you argue.
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Watched the Nadi lad's club tape again last night after reading this thread, and I'll say one thing up front: sample size on him is tiny, so anyone promising he solves five penalties a game is selling something. That said, FrontRowFan's numbers line up with mine, around a three-point swing per match is exactly the kind of margin that decides a knockout game, and playoff refs do whistle the hit and the bind earlier than the regular season crowd. We survived against the Crusaders because our attack bailed the pack out, not because the set-piece held. My honest position: blood him in a game we can absorb a wobble in, keep the senior tighthead starting, and judge it off twenty-plus minutes against a real pack rather than highlights. There's a nuance here though, if the binds are a technique issue, a new body fixes nothing; if it's conditioning, he might be the answer. Can't tell which from three matches, and I won't pretend I can.Numbers > vibes.
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Sorry if this is a dumb question 😅 but what actually makes a scrum creaky? Is it the tighthead getting beaten or the whole pack timing? Thanks for explaining 🙏Dumb questions are my specialty.