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His injury opens the door to blood a new loosehead prop, maybe Xavier Numia, who was a beast last SRP season but has not yet reached the same form. Ollie Norris is another contender at the Chiefs as is George Bower.

And like I said, he has only ever performed well at 7 in international rugby when there has been a specialist openside elsewhere in the back row who is able to share the defensive workload. If you’re going to lock in to only ever selecting Tom Curry at 6 then there’s no issues at all. But if there’s a chance that one day CCS, or Ted Hill, or Chessum, or Kpoku, or Carnduff might play 6, then a backrow with Earl at 7 would be extremely unbalanced.

I don’t have a pension fund. I am relaxed, but I’m that my tone offended you - it really wasn’t deliberate!

I named the specific coaches that the numbers were based on - which ones render the comparison “unstable”?

So if even your best examples of older coaches stepped back to more minor roles by 65 at the latest, its a bit of a non-sequiteur to suggest that Les Kiss should begin the biggest role of his life aged 63.

“rugby is still so very young as a pro sport. It hasn’t had much of a chance to value that kind of experienced head yet. It takes time to accumulate enough relevant experience, and rugby is only 30 years old.”

well, except for Gatland and Jones - but their experience doesn’t seem to count for much at the moment!

And Smithy’s WWC win with the Black Ferns was hardly nothing, in fact he rated it his most memorable achievement!

The most influential factor compared to American Sport may be that rugby is still so very young as a pro sport. It hasn’t had much of a chance to value that kind of experienced head yet. It takes time to accumulate enough relevant experience, and rugby is only 30 years old.