Or an Academy player - if not Barnham (as it appears we had already binned him), then Roussarie.
Neither of those are adequete cover for the first team, which is probabley why they'll be released shortly if they haven't already. A loan signing was made and then utilised whilst Harrison returned to full fitness. It would have been good to see more of Harrison this season but it was a hard season and not always the easiest to give young players a chance in those circumstances.
Neither of them was adequate enough to sit on the bench for ONE Premiership match, which we lost anyway?
Right...
So how on earth did they manage to end up in the Leicester Academy for so long? Shouldn't someone have noticed that they were utterly incapable before then?
And shouldn't someone tell Nottingham that their back-up SH is so abysmal that he couldn't even be trusted to SIT NEXT TO a Premiership match, let alone actually feature it?
Whoa, whoa, whoa!!!
You're being a bit unfair to Finlay here. He's not abysmal - far from it. From what I saw of him last season he did alright. Unlike Roussarie, who was so dire Nottingham SENT HIM BACK after ONE GAME!!! Why on earth has no-one at Tigers noticed this?!
I had a very interesting conversation with someone mentioned in this post a few weeks ago about his time at Leicester which he told me some very interesting things. Im not commenting on what he said but I get the feeling that the excuse given was that he was surplus to requirements but more like his face didnt fit.
is it not pretty obvious from the academy and LV cup games that the standard is actually pretty low in these games, and even in the championship! i don't see how people can assume that shoving a young player thats showed a little bit of something in one of these games onto the bench is going to help. if the starting player ends up going off after 5 mins then 75 mins of rugby at a much higher physical level is most likely going to cause more harm than good.
they get moved into the proper squad so when there ready, although i know this doesnt mean they will get any game time!! throwing a young academy guy straight onto the bench is fine in hind sight when you can say there wern't any injuries so they could have had 15-20 mins game time but no one can possibly know that before the game!
Cardiff Tig wrote:they get moved into the proper squad so when there ready, although i know this doesnt mean they will get any game time!! throwing a young academy guy straight onto the bench is fine in hind sight when you can say there wern't any injuries so they could have had 15-20 mins game time but no one can possibly know that before the game!
That's catch 22 though. If you cannot know whether a player is ready for a Premiership game until he has played in a Premiership game you never play him and hence never know!!
i agree! but RC and O'C obviously do judge that as with harrison - he's not in the academy squad. i accept that thats a completely different problem in that if he's in the proper squad then they obviously think he's ready! i do think gridal is definately underated on this forum though!
my point was directed more at those who suggested sticking the younger academy guys on the bench because its a safe option when theres clearly a chance that they could be put on after 5 mins and all hell breaks out!
i'll admit now that the 12T situation is definately a catch 22! the way i see it RC has developed Allen into a contender for the england 12 shirt (whether MJ sees it that way his up to him!) and developed Manu into a contender for the england 13 shirt. it seems that you take the view that 12T could be a contender for the 12 shirt if he was given more time but that would have negative effects on the other players?
would you rather RC rotated allen/12T and manu/smith/hipkiss throughout the season which would most likely have slowed both allens and manus development down? tigers currently have a centre partnership in which the first choice 12 and 13 are being tipped for a shot at the world cup squad but this is unlikely to have been the case if 12T was developed more fully.
the way I see it manus defence is getting better and better and next season playing 12T and manu at the same time is less of a risk. i also think that manu has a much higher chance of becoming world class than 12T so i agree with RC over his choice of which centre to focus on!
he doesn't have to focus on just two centres, and i definately think the hipkiss situation was strange as i thought he was a good player, but do you agree a centre partnership of manu and 12T is not as defensively organised as one with only 12T or manu? if so is it better to then play 12T with smith/hipkiss so that 12T then becomes more adept at organising the defence or do you play manu with allen so that manu can develop further as RC chose to do? and if you think both should be done equally do you think that manu would have developed to the stage where hes likely to play in world cup warm up games and also possibly allen?
Cardiff Tig wrote:he doesn't have to focus on just two centres, and i definately think the hipkiss situation was strange as i thought he was a good player, but do you agree a centre partnership of manu and 12T is not as defensively organised as one with only 12T or manu? if so is it better to then play 12T with smith/hipkiss so that 12T then becomes more adept at organising the defence or do you play manu with allen so that manu can develop further as RC chose to do? and if you think both should be done equally do you think that manu would have developed to the stage where hes likely to play in world cup warm up games and also possibly allen?
I will not comment on the Hipkiss situation since I have inside information that I will not betray.
I merely comment that whilst I agree with developing Manu's defensive capabilities was enhanced by playing him outside Allen this did not need to exclude bringing 12T on for more than 5 minutes particularly in the event when Manu got banned for thumping Ashton this forced the choice between Hipkiss (no way!!) and Smith. The option of Allen and 12T or even 12T and Smith was thus denied (RC never had Hipkiss as an option).
I do not believe RC should worry for more than 2 nanoseconds about his players world cup chances. He should concern himself solely with what is good for Tigers. I suspect that is what he does - so no change there please!
true, the 5 min cameos were probably not the most useful things for 12T, but i dont recall too many times when RC made obviously wrong choices with subs in the backs during the season? the saracens game at home is the only one that comes to mind as staunton was crocked!
manu getting banned should have had no effect whatsoever on the 12T dilemma, the calls for allen or 12T to possibly play 13 are strange! allen is clearly a very good 12 and has never to my knowledge played 13 for any great period of time. why would you want to move him to 13 when hes had a great season at 12 proved by the players themselves voting him player of the season? especially for a final! similarly 12T is seen to be a 12 by everybody so why bother playing him at 13 when he not fully developed at 12?
i'm not saying RC should develop his players with the aim of getting them to go to the WC but that he develops them to the best of their ability and as a result they might be considered for england. that seems to be what he has done and surely having to centres that are considered to be good enough (almost!!) for england is good for tigers?
