'I was seriously ill and battling for my life. At times I felt like just stopping'

Suafoa was a bit quiet last year as he was beating cancer and had to stop playing for a bit. That’s the kind of guy who will always give 100%.

Being a one position specialist also hurts him. In the medium term (I think before RWC 2027) World Rugby will reduce the number of subs from eight to five (they may leave bench at eight though). Players who can cover more than one role will be at a premium.

I always thought Kirifi should hit the gym and become a mobile number 2. He could’ve been like a more athletic version of Andrew Hore.

As normal the problem is who to leave out.

It’s still pretty early in the Super Rugby season. Maybe he could do a Sititi and force his way in earlier?

Also, Savea can cover all three loose positions as well which is another plus.

I think Cane was a bit too highly specialized e.g. when he was in a pod, the defense was almost certain that he wasn’t going to be the ball carrier and could focus on tacking one of the other two in the pod and blocking Cane’s cleanout.

Incredibly Larkham seems to have found a bit of mongrel, goodness knows where from (he probably doesn’t even know and no one was more surprised than he was) to tell his players to stop fart arsing around.

The Reds should win if they knuckle down and earn the right to razzle dazzle. I can see their desire to want to go to another level but they aren’t there yet. Slowly slowly catchy monkey.

The Reds are lucky JS is not playing.

In 2022 I thought Papali’i would be the way forward. But he’d never quite regained the form he had in the 2022 Super Rugby season.

I think that viewing a player, in isolation, isn’t a great way of doing it. Especially as a good loose forward trio hunts as a pack; and the entire forward pack and wider team work as part of a system.

Requirements for player capabilities are almost like ‘Moneyball’. They can either come from one or two players e.g. lineout throwing or goal kicking, or can be spread across the team e.g. running, offloading, tackling, cleaning out, and turnovers etc.

As stated I think the missing piece with the All Blacks is that they are not busting the line and breaking up the opposition’s highly organized defenses. For instance. If the Springboks forwards had to run 40m meters up and down the field regularly, as the All Blacks have broken the line, then they will get tired and gaps will appear. The Springboks are like powerlifters, very very strong. But if the pace of the game is high they will gas out. But their defense needs to be penetrated for that to happen.

But as you mentioned it, I do recall the turnaround in bristols fortunes that season midway through so I had a look at the teams for that game and bears had around half a team on the pitch and a few more on the bench. I don’t know the crusaders well enough to have a decent view on their strength but I’m sure you will, so their squad was as follows:

15 Chay Fihaki, 14 Manasa Mataele, 13 Jone Rova, 12 Ryan Crotty, 11 Macca Springer, 10 Rivez Reihana, 9 Willi Heinz (c), 8 Christian Lio-Willie, 7 Corey Kellow, 6 Dominic Gardiner, 5 Jamie Hannah, 4 Quinten Strange, 3 Seb Calder, 2 George Bell, 1 Kershawl Sykes-Martin.Replacements: 16 Ioane Moananu, 17 George Bower, 18 Ryan Coxon, 19 Antonio Shalfoon, 20 Fletcher Anderson, 21 Noah Hotham, 22 Taha Kemara, 23 Levi Aumua, 24 Taine Robinson, 25 Jack Gray, 26 Gus Brown