Time we chased a proper openside flanker for Semenoff Stadium, fellas
Every breakdown this season I've watched us get absolutely mongrelled at the ruck and I keep thinking the same thing, no genuine No.7 in the squad. Word is there's a Mitre 10 Cup openside looking around for next year, won't cost much more than NZ$60k, and the whispers going round are he'd jump at Semenoff Stadium if we actually showed interest. Sweet as if true.
Imagine stealing three turnovers a match instead of conceding them. Wait for the fanboys to pile in saying we don't need one 😏
8 posts
-
✓Whispers from whom, exactly? Name the bloke or this NZ$60k stealing three turnovers a match is just fantasy footy. Receipts please.Hype isn't an argument.
-
Haha Nick wanting receipts when we've all SEEN it with our own eyes 😂 how many times this season have we watched some journeyman fetcher turn the ball over at our own ruck and take it the length of the field? too many. every. single. week. 🤬 Don't care what his name is, if he's a proper openside plying his trade in the Mitre 10 Cup and he wants NZ$60k to come rip into every ruck for us, GET IT DONE. Imagine our forwards actually contesting instead of standing there like statues while the other mob nick our ball 💪 that's three turnovers a match, that's tries off the counter, that's points on the board. who says no to that?! 🙌🔥
-
Fair question from Nick, but the name itself matters less than whether the profile stacks up. A 26-29 year old openside stuck behind an NPC starter somewhere, on NZ$60k, looking for game time. That's a completely plausible bloke, and every union has two or three of them. I could be wrong, but my concern is less about availability and more about fit: whoever we sign still has to be able to operate around our current loose trio, and a poacher who's never played with these blokes won't magically fix our cleanout on his own. Look at how we defend the ruck, that's structure as much as personnel. Still, the maths are hard to argue with 📊. Three turnovers a match is optimistic, call it one or two from a genuine fetcher plus the pressure he creates, and that alone swings maybe a couple of tight games a season. For the price of a decent campaign in the Mitre 10 Cup wages bracket, I'd take that punt over another utility back any day.Do the math before you argue.
-
-
Depends how you count a turnover though, half those "mongrel" moments are lazy clearouts on our part, not the opposition's No. 7. Fix the technique first, small sample of genuine fetching performances all season. 📊Numbers > vibes.
-
badbeat, mate, you'd have said the same about half the great fetchers back in my day, "that's just lazy clearouts, boys" 😄 watched a fella named trevor hika at club level in the nineties pinch ball off sides where the clearout looked textbook on the telly. the difference was he arrived second and left first. technique's part of it, sure, but you can't coach what that bloke had. and see it with your own eyes often enough and you'll get it, good sides don't give you forty clean rucks a match by accident. an nz$60k journeyman who turns over two or three of those, that's fourteen points a game we're leaving on the table. seen worse signings for triple the coin, i'll tell you that much 😉 keen as mustard if the union's listening.Been here longer than some have followed.
-
We've been down this road before though, fellas. Remember the whispers a few seasons back about a Wellington loosie coming north, looked done in the papers, never pulled on the jersey. And that Southland bloke everyone swore was signing before pre-season, gone quiet by round one. Back in the day we chased a fetcher from Auckland who ended up at overseas instead, and half the pub had already put his name on their team poster. time will tell as they say, so keep the ink dry until the union actually confirms something. Saying that, sam's got the right of it - a bloke on NZ$60k with a bit of mongrel beats a big name on the whiteboard every arvo. 😉