If we put Baldwinson on the bench instead of Falloon last night and Burrow or Lilley played poorly or got injured then what do we do?

Are you not too old for blinkered hero worship?

So no doubt you would find praise for McDermott if he found reason to use none of his substitutes? Bizarre. By not utilising all the players at your disposal - as has been said if only to give a brief respite to a.n.other - you are handicapping yourself against the oppositon.

You can't possibly cover all eventualities on the subs' bench.... remember at one point in history we only had TWO subs. Eeeh they were the days. McDermott obviously still hankers after them too. He could probably just about manage utilising two subs...I think

Not IF he had a good reason for not having Faloon on the bench.Four forwards are fine if you have enough versatility in the rest of the forwards. Ablett is a good 'substitute back' and Burrow is a (arguably) adequate 'substitute halfback'

He didn't have good reason for not having Falloon on the bench until the game unfolded and Burrow's performance said he should say on.

Who plays hooker if Burrow or one of the HB's go off injured? You not going to cover that just so another forward can do a short stint whilst resting your starting forwards?

What good is that extra forward if you don't have the hooker/HB's in place to guide them around?

Perhaps McDermott was looking to make a statement that he's not happy with Falloo s performances so far.

So to make a point to an individual, he'd deliberately select him in the 17 and not play him?

He's batsh*t crazy at times, but not that batsh*t crazy.

No conspiracy about it. It did, as it always does, make sense to have an interchange pivot on the bench. Burrow had one of his best games for quite some time so it made sense to keep him there and McDermott who probably expected to bring Falloon on just either side of HT reacted to what was actually happening on the pitch instead of sticking with a pre-planned interchange, pretty simple really.

Of course you could have brought Falloon on and had him defend where the hooker usually defends and spell whoever was doing that job. He didn't have to go at dummy half when we had the ball. Burrow could have stayed there. Plenty of other teams have managed to have two hookers on the pitch at the same time.

Which clearly fatigued player are you talking about?

Could've done but the forwards were doing well and it would've robbed us of a proper ball carrier whilst Falloon is stood in the attacking line twiddling his thumbs not knowing what to do with himself as he's not use to not being at dummy half.

Hypothetical. He could have equally come on and scored a try to give more breathing space. Silly argument.

How many subs would have to go unused for [iyou[/i to consider it folly?

I wonder if the RL reduced the number of subs to three if McDermott would still prefer - and often choose - to go one less

Ablett and Achurch were out on their feet. As said, no problem with leaving Burrow on, but at 20-12 with six minutes left and the forwards blowing it might have been smarter to shore up the middle with a fresh defender. We weren't far away from paying for it.