Team - 2012 (Official Thread)

Should Danny Buderus start?

  • Yes

    Votes: 30 88.2%

  • No

    Votes: 4 11.8%
  • Total voters
    34
Pieguyfly said:
Nah trials you are always throwing around your team...i imagine we'll see a hundred different combos during trials
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I guess so but our two main trials this year had pretty similiar teams to what we've fielded this year.

1. McDonnell
2. McManus
3. Sa'u
4. Naiqama
5. Mata'utia
6. Rogers
7. Mullen (c)
8. Kaufusi
9. De Gois
10. Tuimavave
11. Taia
12. Costigan
13. Taufua

14. Hilder
15. Paterson
16. Fa'aoso
17. Likiliki
18. Edwards
19. Tolar
20. Henry
21. Karawana
22. Ciraldo
23. Southern

&

1. Gidley (c)
2. McManus
3. MacDougall
4. Sa'u
5. Uate
6. Henry
7. Mullen
8. Fa'aoso
9. De Gois
10. Tuimavave
11. Taia
12. Paterson
13. Costigan

14. Hilder
15. Kaufusi
16. McDonnell
17. Houston
18. Edwards
19. Naiqama
20. Ciraldo
21. Likiliki
22. Rogers
23. Mata'utia

To be fair though it is a new coach, buuut.
 
I'm getting very excited thinking of next year, trying to figure what I think is our best team. I'm still not sold on the backline but assuming we do sign Bedsy this would be my forward pack and most of my bench:

8. Snowden
9. Buderus
10. Costigan
11. Houston
12. Taia
13. Hilder/Edwards

14.
15. Edwards/Hilder
16. Fa'aoso
17. Tuimavave
 
As much as i would loce to see Costigan in FRF I doubt he will play there when we have Fa'aoso, Tuimavave and Edwards! IMO i see him playing lock though as a 3rd FRF
 
josh2010 said:
As much as i would loce to see Costigan in FRF I doubt he will play there when we have Fa'aoso, Tuimavave and Edwards! IMO i see him playing lock though as a 3rd FRF
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Edwards has more or less switched to lock along with Hilder and if Hilder is sharing the hooking duties next year which looks likely I see Edwards playing lock, whether off the bench or starting. If that's the case our props look pretty thin with Sowden, Tui, Fa'aoso, Tetevano although I think he plays 2nd row aswell, Tolar but preferably only with injuries, so I think Costigan should play prop ad Houston and Taia can hopefully both play 80 minutes.
 
Dane Laurie could be there yet too and or Cuthbertson they both play front row though cuthbertson has been playing lock too.Sowden, Tui, Fa'aoso, Tetevano ,simms and anderson will probably get a run next year and if they debut next year they dont go into the cap till 2013 and should be ready to take over by then.

Added after 23 minutes:

1 Boyd
2 Uata
3 Wes
4 Sau
5 Tahu
6 Stig
7 Roberts
8 Snowden
9 Gidley
10 Tuimauvave
11 Costigan
12 Taia
13 Houston
14 Hilder
15 Faaoso
16 Laurie
17 Teteavano
18 Edwards
my wish list lol
 
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Any side without Mullen is out rageous. He was on the fringe of playing for NSW before he got injured and has been playn injured ever since. It is more likely that Mullen will be playing for Australia next year then not being in our starting squad.
 
I think he will be in the side too but if it was up to me based on his performance over the last few years next year would be his last chance . To play for australia there would have to be a lot of injured halves as theres a lot in front of him and hed want to play a lot better than he has been . Also if he or you are going to use the excuse that hes injured then he shouldnt have played at all as him there injured obviously didnt work as most fans on here are sick of his inconsistancy.

Added after 7 minutes:

Its only outragous to you not to me after watching Roberts and Stig play well together the few games where they were the halves was the first time for years that we had a halves pairing that worked and looked good together .
 
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laney said:
Its only outragous to you not to me after watching Roberts and Stig play well together the few games where they were the halves was the first time for years that we had a halves pairing that worked and looked good together .
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They also played against the Roosters and second grade Dragons outfit. They looked good, but hardly got tested. Stig did stand up in the Dragons game at a crucial time though, I'll give him that. Mighty impressive with the game on the line.

Walsh and Dureau, and even Mullen for that matter, looked good in their first few NRL games, and many of us thought (in hindsight, hoped) they would be the answer. But here we are 4 years later.

Also the combination of Mullen/Gidley looked the goods at the back end of 2010.
 
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Everyone says we played a second grade Saints side but no one mentions the fact that our team that day had as many if not more 1st graders missing than they did.
Yes mate that is true they did look the goods at the end of last year and Mullen looked awesome the first couple of games this year but thats what i find frustating about him acouple of awesome games a year and then well not so much.
 
Past few years, Mullo has had a horror run with injuries. 2009 he was fit for the majority of the year & was in good form, made CvC, almost made Origin, lead us into the finals & got 10 tries to his name to add to the luxuries. 2010 & 2011 he's had some bad luck. Thing is, when he's fully fit he is usually playing well or brilliant. Then he gets the injuries, plays on injured & plays badly, misses games here & there & plays pretty poorly until he starts to recover fully again. He is injury prone. Now i'm not saying he shows that SOO form every game that he is fully fit in, but in those games he's usually showing off a good kicking game, long passing, line breaks, maybe a couple of shocking passes (but he's prone to that). Then in a game where he's on, he outclasses every halfback in the comp. He shows the skills of a good NRL halfback. When he's injured (most of the time) he's showing poor decisions & shocking passes & kicks put together.

My conclusion is that if he had a fully fit season, he would play consistently well. But coz he's injury prone, he doesn't get much chance to play on the field fully fit.
 
Exactly, and you know who else was injury prone at one stage? Benji. The clubs doesnt stick by these type of players for no reason. Its obvious the talent they have, with Mullen its not an attitude problem in terms of work ethic like many other talented players who never kicked on.

He is 24, going into his prime years of football. But yeh, lets show him the door and see him excel at another club. I'm sure we'd all love that. Ironically it'd probably be the same people complaining saying how inept our management is :lol:
 
Not me mate i know that sometimes a player needs to leave a club before his game comes together so i wouldnt complain at all but if we can get Mullen playing consistant good footy as i said before i wouldnt swap him for anyone. Trouble is so far he just hasnt lived up to his potential .Also i know hes had a few injuries but i dont think that is the cause of his wrong choices on the field and his going to pieces for the rest of the game once hes made a mistake , but hey i will be as happy as anyone if Bennett can get him playing week in week out to the standard we all know hes capable of.Personally i think he should go back to 5/8 and Stig to 1/2 Mullens a much better 5/8 than 1/2 back.
 
I think it's a number of reasons1. He is a confidence player so at the start of the year he was full of confidence from a good off season, but then he gets injured.Stone sends him back out at 90% and he plays average, so he tries to make it up but tries too hard and plays poorly, this then causes his confidence to crash and then we watch his season just crash from there.It's in this situation where a experienced coach (not just WB but sheens and Lang would do the same) and either not send the player back early or give them a week off so they can escape from the footy for a few days and let the injury heal or to just try and clear the head.How many times this year (and last) did stone rush back players a week or 2 early?? Gidley in the cowboys game did his hammy the week before. Sau....there's been that many times sau has come back with some sort of injury I've lost count, matty hilder with that head wound and I'm sure there's others.Give mullo a chance under a decent coach who knows how to deal with the players mentally (you sure as hell can't say that was smith) and we'll see a different player.
 
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I don't know how you can blame his poor decisions in attack and his lack of composure under pressure on playing injured?
 
I said he plays average when he's injured so then he tries too hard (thats when the poor decisions and lack of composure come through).

At the end of the day, WB wanted him to stay so he can obviously see something, the skills are there, we've all seen mullo on his day. Unfortunately it feels like it's 1 good 10 bad.

As much as I hate all the comparing to dragons players, wasn't soward in a similar situation with lack of consistency?
 
The key difference is Soward had been in and out of first grade his whole career, never able to hold down his spot. Bennett came in and guaranteed him his first grade position for the whole year.

Early on there was criticism of him doing that, but by late season Soward was in career best form.

I don't think that ploy will have much affect with Mullen ... although him and Soward both struggle with confidence ... how can you boost Mullen's when he's been first picked for years already?
 
There has to be some slight doubt over Mullen's future. 2 r**ted shoulders that keep going on him. This year alone he had a torn pec, a torn rotator cuff, partially dislocated shoulder/s and was still expected to be faultless each week. I think a fair bit of the criticism directed at him(me included) is a bit harsh,
 
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