Longy, Obst, Head are 3 that spring to mind.

We'll have Seymour and Westerman in the middle too plus Heremaia. Horne will be allowed to concentrate on what he does best so if he doesn't perform then he has no excuse. Drop him and bring Ellis into 7 and Seymour to 6.

Horne looked good alongside Head (when he played), alongside Long (when he played), and Obst is a part-time 7 who blows hot and cold. It's been years since he had a decent 7 playing alongside him on anything like a regular basis. Maybe it would be worth waiting to see how he goes alongside Seymour before writing him off?

Then do what with McKinnon?

I have not written him off, I would like to see what happens with Ellis who looked good, granted though his performance was in NL1 so we will see. Horne is good for cover especially the f/back role imo.

Other than a step or a dummy, what other ways are there to get through a defensive line on your own?

Maybe we could all chip in and buy him some boots with foot-long springs on the bottom so he can bounce over the opposition?

Dummy runners, players running good lines/angles and hitting gaps are what's needed. If Horne doesn't have his teammates doing this, then he has no other option but to take on the line himself.

You say you haven't written him off, and then say he's only good for cover and preferably in a position he's hardly played in?

How about we see how he goes first before throwing in a player who is completely untried at SL level and looks to have a fair amount of work to do in pre-season to get up to SL fitness levels? We've signed Ellis as a player for the future and alongside Niklas we could have a young halfback partnership to build around over the coming years. I'm sure both will get some game time through injuries and may also step in if Horne or Seymour have performance issues. No sense in rushing them in just for the sake of a change though.

Is the right answer.

People so easily forget that Shaun Briscoe scored a hatfull of tries 'just following Richard around the park' in his own words. Maybe if we had some support play we'd see that happening again? At the moment Horne is being expected to create opportunities AND somehow follow them up since no bugger else seems capable of it.

I find it bordering on the surreal that there are people on this forum who seemingly want to get rid of Horne but keep Washbrook

I agree. It's also exactly the reason why he has been less effective taking the line on. People are saying it's because he's too predictable now, but it's at least as much that we as a team are more predictable. It's not hard to get bodies ready to tackle him and prepare for his step when it's clear he has no other options available to him.

But what's the alternative?

If we did release Horne, which players are/were available that we could have brought in?

This is what winds me up about our fans. "He's crap", "he should be released" etc, without the thought entering their minds that these players that they want rid of need (for the most part) replacing. There simply aren't that many players available of sufficient quality, not to mention fitting them within the quota/non fed rules etc. Pfft.