Leinster take a gamble on an ex-American football lineman

Yes it’s entirely possible and probable that the Vaai experiment might be shelved for games and they do play lock together

We may unearth another by then

Lord still hasn’t had a proper go yet and Tuipolotu at a similar Barrett age seems back to great form too

The 4 lock is an enforcer who is very physical and carries hard in tight, a very effective nasty ruck cleaner, a very powerful scrummager behind the tighthead, and hard hitting defender. Often the are the second lineout option at the back. This is the spot Scott Barrett and Patrick Tuipulotu, Isaiah Walker- Leawere play. Big tough hard men. Think Bakkies Botha and Brodie Retallick.

The 5 lock is almost always taller and leaner as their primary responsibility is winning the ball in the air on lineouts and restarts. Height is essential. They clean a ton of rucks and make a lot of tackles but their carries tend to be out wider in space and which requires more athleticism than tight lock. This is where Holland, Va’ai, and Darry play. Think Victor Matfield and Sam Whitelock.

My point is Holland is way too lean in his body shape at this point, and too inexperienced, and not quite enough mongrel to play 4. Give him time to physically mature and harden up. He is playing great at 5 and Va’ai looks very good at 6.

I’d be happy to see EDG and Lomax starting and Williams and Newell to smash it around the 45-55 mins mark

Tosi is massive too with such great hands

I think like Finau they can get much more out of EDG for sure

Agree on your comments

But hey, it’s nothing new to Australia and NZ with PI!

Secondly, the agreement with the French League, Toulouse and UBB was to have the 5 players play as much as they can. If not, forcing guys to travel at the other end of the world to watch a game from their seats was not acceptable from that convention’s point of view.

So Galthié as they all arrived shortly before the 1st game, he had to put all 5 of them for the 2nd game, altering the cohesion.

In the end, 2 of them got injured after game 2 (Barassi and Vergnes-Taillefer).

So at least 8/9 changes were forced.

And here in France, a lot of people are angry that not all of the 42 players involved in the tour have played…! Some had game time at Twickenham, but 4 of them played 0 minute in all of the 4 games.

Couilloud and Berdeu are slightly more balanced, Pau has a more dominant 10 with Simmonds with Daubagna on his side.

I’m quite curious of the Jauneau/Plummer association this year at Clermont! An AB fly-half with an electric French scrum-half.

From the moment Owen Farrell showed up on this tour, sitting in the stands at one of the Lions games, the Lions have gone downhill, looking less organized and motivated.

It won’t be long after the tour ends that we’ll be reading about the negative effects of coach’s decision to put his out-of-form in the team... from those on the tour.

I agree that NLG/Hastoy can work pretty well, they’re well balanced, more than the strong 9 at Toulouse and the strong 10 at UBB.

And man, I’d love Danty to have a good come back, I really like the player and the guy, but I’m afraid it’s a bit too late for his playing style. But still, he could still prove very useful at LR!

That way, 3 Autumn Series + 5 6Nations + 5 ECPR + 10 Top14 games = 23 games.

With that, touring in the Summer could be more viable.

But man, that’s really just 10 out of 29 potential Top 14… For the club paying the salary, for the broadcaster paying for the product and for the viewer buying a subscription to watch the game, 1/3 is really poor…

But yeah, that’s a risky tactic that could have been better exploited by the ABs.

I would be interested to see similar stats. for the Ireland trip out to SA last year. Probably similar to the NZ trip ? And the current Lions tour out here in Australia ? With the big number of Irish players in the match day 23, would think their load would be the lightest against the others.

Just checked some: Freeman played 29 games before Lions tour, 2202 mins. Itoje 28 games, 2136 mins. Conan 23 games, 1279 mins. Aki 22 games, 1509 mins. So with that sample, the Irish bias in the 23 is a factor in the Lions favour….maybe !

Just want to point out that people constantly changing the Laws of the game have unwittingly / knowingly made South Africa change the way they play.

The current Springboks have evolved to not only compensate for the depowering of the scrums and speeding up the game but are thriving, leading the world in innovation and have become harder to beat now more than ever before.

Simply put, “the law of unintended consequences” has come full circle and bitten all of them in the @$$.

Isn’t it absolutely glorious?