Almost feeling sorry for Quade Cooper

[nickdnz]

I still SMH at this. Took it personally.

I remember being horrified that there was no Christian Cullen or Andrew Mehrtens (two of my favourite players) but there was Caleb Ralph and Ben Blair who got injured and was replaced by a young 19 year old guy called Ben Atiga who had only played a handful of games for Auckland...The fact neither Cullen or Mehrtens were selected for the squad - while Mitchell was selecting a bunch of new guys who hadn't looked amazing in their few AB games/haden't even made a debut - made me more angry than any other selection to date.

 

[donmcdazzle]

I remember being horrified that there was no Christian Cullen or Andrew Mehrtens (two of my favourite players) but there was Caleb Ralph and Ben Blair who got injured and was replaced by a young 19 year old guy called Ben Atiga who had only played a handful of games for Auckland...The fact neither Cullen or Mehrtens were selected for the squad - while Mitchell was selecting a bunch of new guys who hadn't looked amazing in their few AB games/haden't even made a debut - made me more angry than any other selection to date.

That was such an abomination of a coaching staff, god I hated Mitchell and Deans. On Cullen; everyone talks about him bursting onto the scene in Hong Kong in 1996 and Gordon Tietjens 'discovering' him, but I can remember him absolutely ripping up the 2nd division for Manawatu in 1995.. Frank Oliver was the coach of the NZ under 19s and recruited him up to play for us.. man it was awesome he was untouchable. They had songs about him on the radio and stuff and he became every kid in Palmy's hero pretty much.

 

[Sam Owen]

I do feel sorry for Quade he's a fantastic player but I feel more sorry for Robbie Deans as he's now only got O'Connor and Beale for first fives unless of course he calls up Quade. O'Connor did have a quiet game (yes he was playing) but I think O'Connor is good to start with, I'd go with him again and have Quade on stand-by on the bench.