I used to be a fan of Yeaman's but there are far too many who hold a candle for his past performances of 5 years ago.

Someone laughably described him as world class on this forum not that long ago.

A player of his experiance should have more with the ball in hand than, head down and simply to plough head on into the on running tackler. He has no side step and doesn't pass the ball to his wing man when opportunity knocks.

He is robust in defence but all too often (and this is not just singling him out, King and Manu are well guilty of this), he jumps out of the defencive line only to miss a tackle resulting is a huge overlap generally resulting in us conceding a try.

On current performance should that elusive world class centre sign for us, Yeaman would be the one making way for him.

I've been here all along!

Rubbish. He's been defended on every single crap thread slating him.

Rightly so too.

it was definatley my pepp talk.

TOTALLY AGREE WITH MILD MANNER JANITORS EARLIER POST....

I really disagree with your post. I was one who said that Yeaman in 2007-2008 wasn't at his best and I didn't rate him too highly. However this season I feel that he is playing well. He is hitting the gaps more, showing more pace and I feel his defence is a lot less patchy than in recent seasons. Although I wouldn't exactly say he has an amazing step, he does seem much better off the mark and doesnt generally rely on 'ploughling' anymore. He has also improved his support play.
I also think that the idea he doesnt pass to his winger is a bit outdated too. Yes, he does have the odd time where he doesn't pass when he should but its rare. Most of the time I agree when he doesnt pass. In the oast he had this problem and I think he now has a reputation which has followed him since. Similar to Tony who everyone thinks is poor at catching kicks due to one or two performances when most of the time he is safe under them
He is also putting in a lot of effort and is showing passion. In the past two home games it was him who was shouting at the players and trying to get them going (I didnt see who was doing the talking at Saints so he might have even done it then too). When many players look like they really don't care at the moment, he is one who really is showing he does care yet he is still getting some stick, albeit not a huge amount. I use to give Lee a bit of stick and I have stopped now because he is actually doing O.K in my eyes and isnt one who cba, others should follow suit with Calderwood and to a smaller extent Yeaman

Fair enough, thats your opinion, not going to argue with your view point.

I disagree with you with regard to his passing, its a rarity when he does pass imo.

I would completely agree his effort has been top class, but I would expect any professional sports man to put the effort in as a given minimum.

I feel with his experiance, he should be offering more than just huff and puff.

Lets be fair its rare for any player to pass in the current side.

Just as Briscoe has become popular for his ability to walk through tackles, Yeaman came onto the scene with the ability to step around defenders and use his great fend to finish them off.

Some players play much better if they're involved in the game very early on and especially if they've been roughed up a bit. If they're left out of the game they seem to goto sleep and get lazy. This is where I think Yeamans problem is.

Good assessment of Yeamo for me.

I also don't think Yeaman is intentionally lazy. For me it's down to attitude. We need to involve him more from set plays Imo.

Yeaman's defence seems to be getting worse to me, Key. In fact, the whole left hand side defence needs tightening up considerably. Manu, Yeaman and Briscoe have slipped off far too many tackles of late and, as someone mentioned earlier, Yeaman steps out of the line far too often and doesn't make it count. He's a shadow of his former self, IMO.

Agree his once trademark spot tackling is more of a liability than anything else these days.

It maybe wouldn't look like he is jumping out the line if the team moved up faster together.

But they don't. And it does.

The team [ishould[/i move up faster, but that doesn't excuse anyone jumping out of the line, missing a tackle and leaving a big fukoff gap behind him.

got to admit i didn't rate him for the first 5ish games but he's been really inpressive for the past couple. the work he put into the game is top notch. would like to see him get more trys and stop running from dunny half!