Experience Or Form

[TheSaffycen]

After the flankers thread I made Stormer made (too me) an interesting point, if you where an owner and you had to pick from a player who has been injured for 2 or 3 years, or an in-form player who is not injury prone who would you pick ? Now i'm not posing that question but what I am asking is would you pick on Form Or Class ? From an armchair fans point of view, If your where South Africa would you pick Burger or Louw? New Zealand would you pick Kaino or Messam? If you were Australia would you pick Pocock or Hooper ? Would you pick Elsom or Higginbotham? Not necessarily those cases but in general what do people go for ?

 

[j'nuh]

Are you saying that Hooper, Louw etc aren't classy in themselves?

It's up to the player coming back to prove their ability. The best players have no problem doing this, and get reinstated in their position after a handful of games.

 

[TheSaffycen]

Are you saying that Hooper, Louw etc aren't classy in themselves

They are very good players, I would give them 7.5/10, but players like Burger and Pocock are 'THE BEST' at what they do. At their best they can win you games they are the 10/10 's of the world, these guys can do things that Louw or Hooper can't even at their best. But as I said it's not just these examples they're just ones that came off the top of my head, the Burger and Kaino question will be coming up and I find it interesting what people would do in that situation who do you pick ?

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

I would go for the in form player and maybe allow the injured player to be an impact sub, just to have the chance to regain their position if they are capable of playing on form again. However a player who has a reputation but is consistantly off form (Ashton) should be dropped if it doesn't pick up.

For England this is a pretty valid thread at the moment with the likes of Tuilagi and Parling coming back, do we really need them? It might be the same with Dan Cole when he eventually recovers. Corbs I think will be a no brainer though, he has shown himself to be good pretty soon after injuries and our looseheads haven't been all that inspiring at the moment. Pity he is getting injured so damn often. Would be a real shame if his rugby career stalled just because of his leg problems.