Best Front Row for the Super 15

[nickdnz]

Tialata had a great game for the Barbarians, must of realized that he's crap and needs to pick up his game.

Yeah, he looked very good for the Barbarians, the reason being he didn't play like any Wellingtonian or Kiwi knows him to play like. Often he has the mungrel of a kitten with hemophilia, who will stop his 130kg body before making impact, either try a little sidestep and fail or just get pulled down and loose the ball. When playing for the Barbarians he played like a good prop, which meant putting your head down and bowling the twits over. If he played like he played against the Barbarians, we may see him get reselected, however he has been fairly useless thus far.

John Schwalger had a good NPC I thought, playing more aggressivly than usual. He's still not really who you'd want as a first choice prop, but he'll hold his own I think. I can't see the Canes having a first class tight five, if anything they're of very inconsistant quality.

 

[Hulk Hogan]

In that Barbarians game he was fantastic, he's a bit like Serge Lilo in the fact that he has this huge frame, but is too much of a nice guy to play hard and possibly hurt someone in the process, Nice guys who seem to have been pushed into rugby

 

[ranger]

Yeah, he looked very good for the Barbarians, the reason being he didn't play like any Wellingtonian or Kiwi knows him to play like. Often he has the mungrel of a kitten with hemophilia, who will stop his 130kg body before making impact, either try a little sidestep and fail or just get pulled down and loose the ball. When playing for the Barbarians he played like a good prop, which meant putting your head down and bowling the twits over. If he played like he played against the Barbarians, we may see him get reselected, however he has been fairly useless thus far.

John Schwalger had a good NPC I thought, playing more aggressivly than usual. He's still not really who you'd want as a first choice prop, but he'll hold his own I think. I can't see the Canes having a first class tight five, if anything they're of very inconsistant quality.

Schwalgers a handy player with ball in hand, but the same could be said about every forward in Wellington. What the Hurricanes need is an oldschool prop who is just a distructive scrummager and cleans up rucks. If he has feet for hands than so be it. The prospect of having Coles, Schwalger and Ellison in the same front row would be the best in the competition. if they were playing league that is..

 

[nickdnz]

In that Barbarians game he was fantastic, he's a bit like Serge Lilo in the fact that he has this huge frame, but is too much of a nice guy to play hard and possibly hurt someone in the process, Nice guys who seem to have been pushed into rugby

4:20 and 7:16 is how Tialata should play.

Schwalgers a handy player with ball in hand, but the same could be said about every forward in Wellington. What the Hurricanes need is an oldschool prop who is just a distructive scrummager and cleans up rucks. If he has feet for hands than so be it. The prospect of having Coles, Schwalger and Ellison in the same front row would be the best in the competition. if they were playing league that is..

Someone like Nathan White?

 

[TRF_woosaah]

nice vid nick but i dont rate tialata, he had a couple of good runs, but why was he seagulling out on the wing? the other one was just over thrown and was lucky to actually catch the ball

thats just an opinion from the two times that you mentioned on there

 

[nickdnz]

nice vid nick but i dont rate tialata, he had a couple of good runs, but why was he seagulling out on the wing? the other one was just over thrown and was lucky to actually catch the ball

thats just an opinion from the two times that you mentioned on there

Yeah, as I've said I don't rate him. I thought he did have a good game on that occasion though.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

This my friends is a true rugby fan. Being a front rower myself I think its funny how people rate front rows by how many Boks, ABs, and Wallies are in the front row. And if a player falls out of favor with selectors then he is no good i.e Tialata. This is why The Hurricanes have the best front row hands down. First they have played together the longest without a break like the Blues have with Woodcock being gone for a season. Hores injury hurt the FR a bit but not as bad as Woodcock leaving the country. A great row is greater than the sum of all its parts. And secondly the Hurricanes front row will be playing to get back into to the ABs so their hunger which was great before will be even stronger this year. The crusaders will be second and then the Sharks are way down the list. The Sharks got trashed by NZ and Oz teams because John S. is not a prop he is a hooker and his skills have dropped so much that he can no longer hide the fact that he is a hooker by trade. THe only time the Sharks looked dominate was against other SA teams who seemed to have lost the scrum before the match started because they were looking at the names on the line-up and how they were playing. I like the Reds FR but I'm worried about Daley and Faingaa trying to hard to show that they are world class and pressing in the scrums which will throw the whole scrum off. Slipper is a beast and thats why people will be saying "Who was Weeks?" by Round 3. And can't forget that fellow Sunnybanker Holmes is the reserve prop and Hansen played in the second hardest local comp (ITM) two years ago so the Reds have possiably the most exp. bench in the comp.

To an extent though, the number of internationals IS a rather clear indication of the value of a front row unless the national selectors are complete idiots (which might well be the case to some extent) and it also does not allow for the variables of loss of form of current internationals and the relative unknown impact of up-and-commers. But still, it is a pretty fair ussumption that an international front rower is one of the better front rowers of that particular country.

As for the Sharks, by your own estimation they are arguably the best as they are the set-up with the most time together because have been playing for a couple of years now in S14, CC and internationals. Also, you are a bit behind the times WRT John Smit; he has been playing recently at hooker which is what he is and it seems that everyone involved has realized that the experiment was unsuccessful. He has been losing weight over the off season to be his optimum weight for hooker again and to be more effective. That scrum with an all Sharks front row more than held its own against the NH heavyweight scrums of Wales, Italy and England in recent years. Only France at the end of 2009 gave us trouble which I guess was the turning point.

 

[Seaton]

Williams and Boric.

Hmmmm, suppose I would have them over Sykes and Hargreaves, but still way behind other pairings imo

I'll reserve my judgement until after the Blues vs. Sharks match

With regards to John Smit, he was asked/told to lose 7 kgs or so by January, but even so, in a recent article John Plumtree said they would look at playing
All round the front-row, but that would be from a bench position I'm guessing

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

Hmmmm, suppose I would have them over Sykes and Hargreaves, but still way behind other pairings imo

I'll reserve my judgement until after the Blues vs. Sharks match

With regards to John Smit, he was asked/told to lose 7 kgs or so by January, but even so, in a recent article John Plumtree said they would look at playing
All round the front-row, but that would be from a bench position I'm guessing

Bench would be good; Bismarck just adds to much to ignore. If Smit plays prop I hope it is loosehead as he did allright there but tighthead is not his thing. The problem here is John Plumtree is giving PdV ideas; what works in club championships doesn't necessarily work on the international stage and PdV would have more resources to work with in any case.