Bevan looks well out of form and/or is struggling with that knee injury.
With the first two NQL tries Bevan was nowhere in sight with his covering defence, not even in the wide screen shot (very poor). Bevan's covering defence at fullback reminds me of Hayne's covering defence - non existent. Bevan needs to study Slater's effort, determination and positional play at the back and he needs to be putting pressure on the winger scoring in the corner.
In the second half French continued to struggle in defence. He ran out of the line and allowed Thurston to run through the middle untouched. Again we saw French miss a tackle when Moses miss read the play. When Winterstein scored in the second half French was nowhere in sight with a last ditched effort covering tackle - nowhere (very, very poor).
What I disliked the most with Bevans game tonight was that the vast majority of his kick returns were not done by him, which is the bread and butter job of a fullback.
During the game I was thinking we desparately need Gutherson at fullback for his energy, effort, defensive structure and most importantly his fitness. French's fitness is half that of Gutherson and we need Gutherson at the back next game. French to move back to right wing where he was scoring a try or more a game.
Even the TV commentators are calling for Gutherson to move back to fullback!!!
Replies
You may be right Dave.
There were a lot of potential offloads with no one in sight too.
But I think things may look a bit different when
1. Hoffman gets back
2.Moses gets more ball and therefore the right side attack gets more ball (probably stayed away from the rooky right winger deliberately)
3. Bevan gets back in form e.g. he used to score > 1 try a game. Hasn't scored since his injury
So would not be changing things just yet
1. Gutherson
2. Semi
3. Takairangi
4. Jennings
5 . Hoffman
6. Norman
7. Moses
8. Vave
9. Kaysa
10. Mannah
11 tep
12. Manu
13. Brown
14. Scott
15. Alvaro
16. Matagi
17 Edwards
Same for Moses. He is a twig.
he has more bulk than Moses ATM
Unfortunately, I don't see it happening anytime soon. I think it is more likely Bevan is dropped or rested then move back to wing as BA is set in his ways.
I have been saying this and have been castigated for it. On kick returns he cannot beat first defender rushing up on him. Instead he passes to Semi. Not what you want from a fullback. Get his confidence back on the wing replacing that butter fingered Davis.
Big Dave I agree with what you are saying as I have stated a while ago that French has not been himself and Gutherson needs to be fullback. I even left French out of my team in the top 17 as I believe he needs to go to wenty to build him up and work on some aspects of his game and was shouted down by a lot on here but after last nights game and what you say just proves I was right and dropping French back to wenty would be good for his develepement with out all the pressure to perform in in nrl games.