Quote: alegend "POP TART can I put it this way When we played Leeds we had the youngest team we have had out since the season started Think there was just four old forwards on the park ,Dave,Ashurst,Proctor, and Pitts The three-quarters line had Kershaw ,the young French winger and Croft The rest of the pack was made up of younger forward including the young French forward and Eseh .Dagger was at 6 That performance was good to watch ,plenty of speed in every thing you got to do in rugby to win and good performance from all 17 players in the squad.That team as been changed so much to bring back in all the old players , that apart from a few got us a 15 losing start to the season . We have just done a full circle apart from when we played the youngsters who were kicked out of the team as soon as the coach could get rid Seems the old players can play bad week in week out but if you are young one mistake and your out'"
I agree with you.
Except we also won a game or two with older ones.
I'm absolutely with you that the younger team is preferable.
But individually some of those players deserved their place too.
You can't honestly say you'd pick Smith and Dagger at halves instead of playing Gale surely? It worked against Leeds but that doesn't mean it will always work.
Against Leeds, Fifita, Battye, Ashurst, Pitts all played.
Since the Leeds game Hewitt, Smith, Franco, Salabio have not been available.
The next game we won was against Salford.
Lineham, Lyne, Gale, Bowden, Hood, Battye,Pitts, Ashurst, Kay and Fifita all played.
So it isn't just young v old. It's the right players and right balance.
Mash got loads of grief after playing Kay at 13 when we lost but don't seem to remember he was outstanding previously there.
My only point really is that I don't like it when people blindly criticise Mash using examples that just don't make sense....not you
I of course agree with you that a younger team is better and that our squad has too many old players in key positions, but imagine the grief Mash would get if he played the team from Leeds game as his starting lineup all season.
