Quote: NickyKiss "Hampshire is a gem and it'd be exciting to watch him but ultimately there's nowhere to put him. He's very inexperienced and we're carrying enough young lads in the team. We have Matty Bowen at fullback who is experienced and knows what to expect. We have Green at 6 who was MOM in the grand final and has a point to prove down under. The only other option was to bench Hampshire and use him at 7 with Smith at 9 when Micky Mac goes off but that's disruptive to our pattern of play as Smith will be controlling us from 7.
There just isn't room to play him IMO but his time will come.'"
I agree, I've got no doubt that Hampshire's time will come, but people need to be patient. People caliing for him to be put in at FB over Bowen, for example. He's 19, he'll probably play 10-15 games this season and he'll benefit massively from that. Throwing him in at the deep end to play a WCC in Oz when he's got less than 10 first team appearances under his belt isn't the right approach.