With Australia likely to be without Thurston, Smith, Cronk and Slater from now on I reckon we should be looking for series wins and to take the world number 1 spot in the next few years.

I know Australia have strength in depth with replacements often better than our first choice players. However, if you take them out of any team they’ll struggle to replace straight away.

I reckon we stage it to try and only lose one per year if we can, rather than ditch them all at once. Form dependent obviously. Give ourselves chance to blood players in a strong team. Potential last tours as follows, the age the player will be at that time in brackets

2017 - Lockers (35)
2018 - Roby (33)
2019 - Graham (34)
2020 - Hill (33)
2021 - Whitehead (33)
2022 - S.Burgess (34) and Hodgson (33)

[*]

Don't know whose vehicle doubles as the 'Yorkshire Bus' but it had better be a big one - with some decent springs..

Correct. The kid is a freak and will be a very special player if his development carries on the way it is.



Ah, you are correct! He is. I hadn't realized he was named in the Kiwi squad for the ANZAC Test. So NZ will have a great hooker for a while then haha. Either way the rest of the players mentioned will be devastating.

Doesn't really matter about blooding youngsters. Pick players that are in form. If the youngsters are good enough then they'll be there down the line anyway.

That's fair enough I guess. Most youngsters get their chance when injury strikes, so they get 'eased' in that way to some extent. I think it's always a good idea to utilise the squad though and I'm not big fan of playing people who are carrying injuries, though we seem to get so many it's difficult not to at times.