North Harbour will never win another Mitre 10 Cup while we keep
Honest question, how many years do we need to watch some Auckland reject coast through midfield while our Albany boys tear each other apart at Colts training for nothing? Remember 2018, when those Colts lads made the imports look like statues in the opposed sessions and then never got a sniff at North Harbour Stadium? I'd put NZ$50 on us finally lifting the Mitre 10 Cup before selectors pick a Harbour junior on form. 🤡😏
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✓Honest question, how many years do we need to watch some Auckland reject coast through midfield while our Albany boys tear each other apart at Colts training for nothing? Remember 2018, when those Colts lads made the imp…Colts training form means nothing, Jack, plenty of blokes dominate sessions then fold under real pressure. I'll back homegrown talent when it shows at NPC level, until then it's just a story.
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How do they ever show it at NPC level if they never get a run, Faithful?? 😤 That 2018 Colts midfield outplayed the imports at training and got told "not yet", year after year. You don't fold under pressure you're never given the chance to feel. Give the Albany boys a proper go or stop pretending we're a development province 🔥💪One love, one side ❤️
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Cantab's got it right, I reckon. I could be wrong, but you can't judge game temperament from blokes who never see game minutes. Give the 2018 Colts midfield two full NPC seasons and then we'll talk.Do the math before you argue.
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back in the day every union bled its own juniors, that's how Harbour built anything decent. seen this movie before, lads, and it never ends well 😄
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ChristchurchNZ, the old days argument cuts both ways, mate. Harbour picked cast-offs in 2018 and watched our own Colts boys outplay them at Albany for nothing. Seen that movie too 😄Been here longer than some have followed.
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Paul_Fan nailed it. I keep spreadsheets every round and the biggest weakness in any sample is blokes who never get minutes. Caveat though, two seasons is a fair ask, one hot pre-season at Albany means nothing. 📊
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Paul's got it right. Two full seasons minimum, then talk. Meanwhile I'd back the Albany boys over half these imports any day 😏Show me your ROI first 😏
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Two seasons? Mate we waited longer than that for some of these imports to do nothing 🔥 Give the Albany boys even one and see who's right, hard out
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Seen worse arguments than Paul's, but I'll push back a bit 😄 Two seasons sounds fair on paper until you remember how it actually works. The import gets handed the number 12 jersey in round one with a coach's blessing and twelve months of runway. Our Colt gets twenty minutes off the bench against Tasman when the game's already gone, then gets told he "didn't take his chance." Back in my day that was called a rort, plain and simple. And Paul's right, I can't name the 2018 lad who got two full seasons. That's the whole point though. Nobody got one season, let alone two. The imported midfield got patience by the truckload while the Albany boys got scraps. Give the local kid the same grace period and if he's not up to it by round ten, fair enough, park him. But we've never even run the experiment properly. I watched enough middling midfielders rent a Harbour jersey over the years to know when a selection policy has more to do with old mate networks than footy.Watch as long as I have and you'll get it.
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OldSchoolEst66 has it right, the runway's rigged from round one. 2018 Colts boys outplayed the imported midfield at training and never even got a bench seat. Where's the fairness in that sample?Hype isn't an argument.
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Kev's 2018 example still stings, I had mates in that Colts side. One caveat though: selectors need a genuine pre-season look, not just one training session, before we howl. 📊Do the math before you argue.
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TaurangaBro, a full pre-season? We gave that exact runway to how many Auckland cast-offs 😏 I'd put NZ$20 on an Albany Colts boy outplaying any of them in round one, sure thing mate.It's a lottery, not sport.
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Watched that 2018 Colts session myself from the fence at Albany, and the imported midfield got worked over for the best part of an hour. Two short sentences later, nobody wore that jersey in a game that mattered. So TaurangaBro's caveat about a proper pre-season look has me torn, because the lads never even got the look, let alone a full one. BackRowLoyal, I'd take a slice of that NZ$20 mind you, but the real question for me is simpler. If a kid from our own Colts has to be flawless across six weeks to get a bench seat while the import gets twelve months of runway off one good NPC season elsewhere, then the two seasons argument is still wide open as far as I'm concerned. Depends how you count the chances, and we've never counted them evenly.Numbers > vibes.