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Message: [QUOTE="BroncsFan, post: 3122001, member: 9052"] It's an interesting question as to how the bench gets made up at full strength... potentially Flegs or Offa drop out as part of keeping the middles fresh. I'd say TPJ comes onto the bench as part of the middle rotation with an ability to cover 2nd row as well... from the trials I'd say the plan is to get TPJ on in the middle and push him into the second row by taking Glenn off, TPJ would then play out the game.. so he either starts in the middle and plays 80, shifting from middle to edge, or comes off the bench at 20mins into the middle before shifting to the edge later in the game. If we drop the outside back for TPJ it's likely Glenn becomes our outside back cover. He could fill in at center with Darius pushing to wing of fullback if an injury did occur. The alternative could be Fifi into the centers with TPJ coming into 2nd row, but that becomes more damaging to our attack by moving Fifi out. I think Staggs will be our back up in the halves until Turps can pump out big minutes. Moving Staggs to the halves as injury replacement for Brodie was very promising and probably got us the win in the end. That move is also less disruptive as it allows Turps and Paix normal hooker rotation to go ahead rather than one of them jumping into the halves... preferably you'd have Herbie on the bench to cover the outside backs but as mentioned Glenn could be seen as that backs cover. To me I think Seibs probably sticks with his 2 forwards, 1 hooker and 1 outside back... and will look to rotate those middles quite regularly. Our middle depth isn't that flash at full strength, as it's basically Kennedy then Hoppa/Riki after that (if you assume 3 forwards on the bench). If you can rotate Flegs and Kennedy through those 2 bench middles it looks safer, compared to Kennedy being your first guy off the reserves with Riki and Hoppa after that. The other thing that may influence is the effect of 6 again calls. There will be a lot more fatigue in the middles as teams become more comfortable with the 6 again calls... whilst Carrigan, Lodge and Haas can pump out long minutes at the current pace of the game, this change of speed around the ruck may require 3 forwards on the bench to ensure that middle defence doesn't become loose. It will be a juggling act with us as we don't have a second rower that can genuinely cover the backs, like a Takaraingi, Luke Capewell, etc. so we have to either rely on Glenn to cover the backs (which I'm not confident about as his speed has been exposed in the past when having to cover center) or we have to hope our middles can adapt to the likely increase in defense through the middle, which allows us the luxury of a back on the bench [/QUOTE]

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