Tight times at the top of the Australian Super Rugby conference as play-offs loom

WR is even jiggling classification to try to get the USA into the next World Cup. They couldn’t beat Uruguay or Chile to get to the last one. Chile!

Tuipolotu for bench grunt with Finau foe the big boys or Kirifi for a faster game

My hope anyway

It’s actually his dominant tackles and open game they will develop but we have seen signs with his offload to Vaai for the try

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!