injury updates: Malakai Fekitoa, Ryan Mills, Will Rowlands, Michael Le Bourgeois

[baldpaul101]

Although many on here choose to pick out his weaknesses I think Lima has been very good in the last few games, especially when fielding a high ball & running it back. Cruse's first try at the Rec start with his catch & pass to Odogwu.
having 2 crash ball centres is fine, but as chunky points out, it limits the game plan somewhat.

[Nigel Med]

I might be inclined to try something radical, like:

Robson
Umaga
Fekitoa
Odogwu

Bassett
Kibirige
Minozzi

And on the bench

Porter
de Jongh
Sopoaga

Can you imagine how a team might want to line up its defense against that lot? If they try to double team Umaga with backs, and he shifts it to Fekitoa, you are going to want two or 3 backs on him, but if he commits them and shifts it to Odogwu, then how many more will you need there? Which would leave Bassett and Kibirige to do what they do best and motor down the outside.

It would force a team into a fast flat defence full of backs and back rowers, meaning there will be the space directly behind them for Umaga to dink over and in to. If the full back covers this, then a deep kick would go over him.

And would you want to kick for defense or attack knowing you could be giving it to any of these backs of ours?

Who's going to take kicks? Jacob is a reasonable kicker but is not at the same percentage as Gopps (at his best) or Lima. He also seems to play better without the added responsibility of taking kicks

[hookender]

I might be inclined to try something radical, like:

Robson
Umaga
Fekitoa
Odogwu

Bassett
Kibirige
Minozzi

And on the bench

Porter
de Jongh
Sopoaga

Can you imagine how a team might want to line up its defense against that lot? If they try to double team Umaga with backs, and he shifts it to Fekitoa, you are going to want two or 3 backs on him, but if he commits them and shifts it to Odogwu, then how many more will you need there? Which would leave Bassett and Kibirige to do what they do best and motor down the outside.

It would force a team into a fast flat defence full of backs and back rowers, meaning there will be the space directly behind them for Umaga to dink over and in to. If the full back covers this, then a deep kick would go over him.

And would you want to kick for defense or attack knowing you could be giving it to any of these backs of ours?

Who's going to take kicks? Jacob is a reasonable kicker but is not at the same percentage as Gopps (at his best) or Lima. He also seems to play better without the added responsibility of taking kicks

Last season gopperth listed as 23/29 for conversions 7/7 for penalties

                   Umaga.               10/12.                      3/5

                   Sopoaga.              4/6.                         5/7

So Umaga  had a better record for conversions. Obviously depends for all of them conditions etc but 
Not a great deal of difference between gopperth or Umaga

[COYW15]

Fekitoa back in full training. https://www.instagram.com/p/CKR-IysluW7/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Will be interesting to see how we use him/Paolo. Mind you we might be without Paolo for a few weeks if Eddie does call him up.

[Neils]

If Paolo is picked by the idiot Jones then he will be gone for the period and will lose his sequence of games plus his place. He will come back as a bench player at best.