I find it annoying when posters refer to “forwards” when they really mean “props”. Not suggesting that you do, but it seems deliberate because we actually have a high quality hooker in Mahoney, a great 2nd row in Kikau and Preston and a good lock in Curran. As a pack of forwards in total we aren’t that badly off.
I would add that anyone who doesn’t believe that Mahoney, Kikau, Preston and Curran are going to heavily contribute to our mid field defence are delusional.
Watching Penrith in particular it’s obvious that teams use their back 5 to run the opposition props ragged early in the tackle count in the middle third of the field. Then use their 2nd rowers and lock slightly wider to make the opposition props work laterally. With the fullback often cutting back behind the ruck. It’s not unusual for their props to only run the ball once or twice in the tackle count, even coming out of their own end.
Obviously Ciraldo knows that we are short an alpha prop and knows well how to use a back 5. He is going to rely on the other quality players (which we have) to contribute heavily to minimise that absence.
Always a Bulldog
They do alot of tackling but my concern is the effectiveness of the tackles and getting to marker.
If the names you mention, I have vivid images in my head of them laying in the ruck while the ball is being played with either only 1 or no markers. Ruck is now lost.
Until we fix the sequence of our roll-offs or ability to turn an attacker so we slow his ptb
I think every club would throw something at DCE... It would probably cause a massive merry go round in the halves too.
Always been a fan of his ability.
He'd be great to take pressure off his halves partner and invaluable to teach the younger guys (and the rest of the team) about game management.
Not sure most clubs would go for him.
If you're a complete team with only the halfback spot as your missing link, yes. Brisbane did it.
If you're a team that needs to sort it's spine so you can figure out if the rest of your players are good enough, yes. That's us.
But if you're a team like Sharks or Parra or Roosters or Souths, I'd say no. You have capable players in that position.
So it's really only bottom placed teams or teams with small window of opportunity to win a premiership that would go for him at this stage of his career