Agree with the rest of what you said but not on this. He made 1 mistake that was his fault where he looked up just as was catching the ball and spilled it. The other mistake was when Hood was trying to be clever and it was just a mis-timed pass. Apart from that he took the ball in hard everytime and always found his front making hard yards and was all over the place making tackles for fun.

To say he's only been in the country a couple of weeks and will be behind on fitness compared to the rest I would sat he had a good game. I agree with McDermott that what you see is what you get and I'm fine with that. I don't want all my props playing like stand offs. We have Peacock, Bailey and Burgess who like to pass the ball every now and then added to Kylie and now Cross who will be used as battering rams. A nice mix if you ask me.

But Keith Boyce didn't have to cope with RU being played on the pitch & the undersoil heating still worked in his day.

Don't get me wrong, I like Cross!! I'm just saying, many expect him to come on and blow them away with how good he is, whereas my point was that generally the Aussie/NZ signings never have the impact on Debut people seem to hope for.

Totally agree with the "what you see is what you get" line. I'm happy for him to do that as you mentioned. Didn't mean my OP to criticise him, as said... I like him.

Keith Boyce had more 1st team games, 'A' team games, Internationals plus the ground was used by the RFL to clear backlogged cup-ties that simply couldn't be played elsewhere and still had plenty of grass on it during winters that were probably both wetter and colder than the likes of ones we generally see these days.

I'll let you off then



But I dont think anyone expected to be blown away by him anyway. A lot on here were "underwhelmed" by the signing. I think he is solid though and will do a good job. If we are going to play that expansive, get the ball wide style that we played saturday we will do it better off the back of forwards who make the hard yards first. Cross and Peacock will make 100+ metres a game and 2 of the other 3 will make 60 or so if last year is any thing to go by. Hes also an extra aid in clearing our own line. Something we strugled at times doing last year. I can only see his signing as a good thing personally.

Any word on Ryan Tongia?

Who ,where ,why how?

Maybe Cross is going to be a Marc Glanville type of player.
From what I've read from & about him he seems a sensible guy who's still got plenty in the tank despite his age.

Yep a no frills "does what it says on the tin" type of player and will allow the likes of Kylie to go back to high impact shorter stints and mean less game-time for Kirke if he's used as a back up prop.

As it is Kirke, I presume you meant She's?

Not a kirke fan but he had a good game on new years day, seemed to run stronger than I have seen of him last year

Didn't he knock on with his first touch?

That aside, he put in a respectable performance. I do however think that he was outshone by Burgess and Cross.