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<blockquote data-quote="psychic duck" data-source="post: 619614" data-attributes="member: 48703">Agree with this. If you look at a lot of the big French teams, the front row is very much a squad effort and sides like Toulon or Toulouse have two sets of international quality props and many such as Clermont swap their props at 50 or 60. You need more than one set of props to be an elite force in Europe you can&#039;t base it around just 1 or 2, a minimum of 3 good quality scrummagers are needed in my opinion in modern day rugby.I checked the stats by the way Peat. In the Heineken Cup this season, Stankovich and Balmain only played 26 in total between them, they obviously aren&#039;t trusted at that level. Dan Cole played 464 minutes from 480 averaging 77 minutes per match, the season before he averaged 60 when Castro was there and the seasons before the starts were split between them. This season Cole is also averaging 70 minutes per match in the Premiership and he&#039;s been playing nearly every game both for club and country. It&#039;s no wonder he tired and struggled against a fresh Tom Court. Clermont by comparison, gave starts to all of Zirakashvili, Kotze and Clement Ric in this seasons tournament and replaced the tighthead at 60 minutes in every single game.In fairness, on this particular occasion the scrum was fixed in the second half as soon as Vickery was subbed off. Vickery was past his best by 2009 after some serious injuries, it was a bad selection error by McGeechan.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="psychic duck, post: 619614, member: 48703"] Agree with this. If you look at a lot of the big French teams, the front row is very much a squad effort and sides like Toulon or Toulouse have two sets of international quality props and many such as Clermont swap their props at 50 or 60. You need more than one set of props to be an elite force in Europe you can't base it around just 1 or 2, a minimum of 3 good quality scrummagers are needed in my opinion in modern day rugby. I checked the stats by the way Peat. In the Heineken Cup this season, Stankovich and Balmain only played 26 in total between them, they obviously aren't trusted at that level. Dan Cole played 464 minutes from 480 averaging 77 minutes per match, the season before he averaged 60 when Castro was there and the seasons before the starts were split between them. This season Cole is also averaging 70 minutes per match in the Premiership and he's been playing nearly every game both for club and country. It's no wonder he tired and struggled against a fresh Tom Court. Clermont by comparison, gave starts to all of Zirakashvili, Kotze and Clement Ric in this seasons tournament and replaced the tighthead at 60 minutes in every single game. In fairness, on this particular occasion the scrum was fixed in the second half as soon as Vickery was subbed off. Vickery was past his best by 2009 after some serious injuries, it was a bad selection error by McGeechan. [/QUOTE]

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