Quote: leicester_rhino "ok, but your opinions on him don't balance the good work he does in defence, with the low rate of work he does in attack.
'"
I've stated previously his work rate in defence is better than his work rate in attack. However, I wouldn't agree that he does "good work" in defence. He's no Clarkson or JJB. That his work rate in defence is slightly better than his work rate in attack is like saying Peter Sutcliffe was slightly less unpleasant than Moira Hindly.
His defensive work, IMO, is a little above average in quantity and soft in quality.
None of this disguises the fact that his work rate with the ball is nothing short of lazy.
None of us know if the coaches tell him not to take the ball up. However, I've never come across a coach at any level who did not want his forwards to carry the ball.
Quote: leicester_rhino "My opinion of him has always been that he's someone to come on for 20mins whilst peacock is off.'"
Is that 20 mins a half or whole game? More like the latter.
Quote: leicester_rhino "As Peacock is so core to what we do we need to try to get the best out of him, which these days means taking a break.'"
Or perhaps reducing his work load by getting the other forwards to make their fair share of carries eh?
Quote: leicester_rhino "Now when he's off, we're unlikely to win the game, but we could certainly lose it. Kirke plugs that gap. Im (sort of) happy for him to come on, make plenty of tackles, make hardly any errors and give away very few penalties. I'd certainly have him over many of the other props we've had in our squad over the years.'"
I think he make no impact on the games whatsoever.
Quote: leicester_rhino "He's no world beater, but you can't have a star in all positions. '"
Agreed.
Cross = Difficult to judge in the limited time I've seen him. Better aggression in the work he does but too prone to penalties. Probably Cross, but only just.
Burgess =- Burgess hands down. Better quality of work. Doubt Kirke would interest any team down under.
Feather = He's Ian Kirke MKIA
McDonald = He's Ian Kirke MKI
Thackray = Streets ahead of Kirke in terms of talent and on field attitude. Streets behind with off field attitude. I doubt Kirke will ever stretch a GB?England jersey unless he buys it from JJB Sports.
O'Neill = No strong opinions. Didn't play enough.
Mathiou = Useless fat lump whose introduction from the bench for Barrie usually coincided with a lull in our tempo and aggression.
The one attribute Kirke possesses that the rogues gallery above doesn't is the luxury of being part of a very, very talented team that Ian has tagged along with for four Grand Finals.