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STRENGTHS
Backrow
Pocock, Hodgson and Brown don't offer the best balanced backrow in Oz but they are arguably the most effective. Ideally you'd like a 3rd lineout jumper who is better than Brown and an 6 and 8 who are not so similar in what they do, but that is immaterial when you look at the work rate and physicality of the three backrowers.
Horua was a significant loss in depth and he always kept the physicality and workrate up to that of the other three. Others will fill in if Pocock is injured but they don't have nearly the same quality as Bam-Bam. If Hodgson is injured the style of player will change and one of the locks, probbaly Stanford, will have to come on at 6, and he will play closer.
Ben McCalman was a fine schools No. 8 and was in cracking form playing in the short-arsed 2nd row for Sydney Uni who use, in effect, 5 backrowers. His professional future is at 8, but if he gets on the park in 2010 don't expect fireworks. First he needs at least a year of physical preparation and second, he is a skills type 8, not a bruiser 8. However, that may change in time with improved physicality and another 5 kgs.
Props
With Dunning and Fairbrother at THP and Cowan and Henderson at LHP; and Dunning able to play at an elite level on the other side if the starting LHP is substituted, they will have one of the better matchday 22 props in 2010.
Goalkicking depth
The Tahs wouldn't mind having some of the Force goal kickers. Shepherd will take the long kicks and Pretorius the shorter ones. Then they have JOC, Sheehan and Harris as 2nd stringers.
WEAKNESSES
Hooker
The Force HPU did a poor job in recruiting an experienced hooker. Even if they had obtained the Oz U/20 captain, Damien Fitzpatrick, who preferred to stay in Sydney as 3rd string for the Tahs, it wouldn't have answered. Ben Whitaker, who was 2nd string in the Oz U/20 team, is a fine, young, big hooker and is as hard as nails, but he will be thrown into the deep end. This has it's good points but the bad will come with it.
Oz coach Deans has done his good mate Mitch a service in cross-training Cowan as a hooker, but I wouldn't set great store by this.
I would expect Dunning to play some at LHP as one of the main duties there is to protect the hooker from the boring in of the defensive THP.
Halves
The scrumhalf and flyhalf connection does not look great. Sheehan is usually superb in Sydney club rugby but he played some ordinary games this year for my club side, the Rats, especially in crunch matches. O'Young played all over him when the Rats took on Eastwood; so, on that form, it won't be so bad with O'Young starting.
Pretorius is an affable, crafty player, and IIRR he was the difference in the result the last time he played in Perth, but the Force will miss having a running flyhalf. JOC will have to provide that at 12.
Petoors is a serial crock and if he is injured the spot may go to Sam Harris, who also plays for my Rats team. He had some good games early in the season but wasn't the greatest after he came back from an injury. Coach Mitchell would have been unhappy watching some of the DVDs of Rats games he got in the 2nd half of the season. He would have been particularly appalled by the frequent poor combination between 9. Sheehan and 10. Harris.
3rd string would be Hunt. He was selected as the 12 in the Oz U/16 merit team in 2007 and I was looking forward to seeing him play in the Oz Schools tournament in Canberra in 2008, but he had a quiet week and didn't make the Oz School 1st XV.
I wouldn't have Rabbit playing 10 as it will cause problems where he should be playing. I have seen him play flyhalf at school and he was like an outside back who's the best player in his school team, playing 10.
Back Three
With Cummins out for the start of the season and Mitchell gone to Sydney the Force will be short of quality in the back three. Sare (yet another Rat as is Cowan) is a good footie player and plays wing often for the Force, but he is really a good centre playing out of position. If another serial crock, Shepherd, succumbs again it would be best to switch Rabbit to fullback as the squad is chock full of midfielders.
Some good news is the form of DHP in the Sydney comp. He didn't get a lot of of press for his good performances here but I thought that he was terrific in the games I saw him play in. I think he'll blossom in 2010. He'll be parked on the wing but his future is at fullback.
Second Row
Sharpe and Hockings are the only two real locks and neither is a good TH lock. Stanford has not shown a lot of physicality in club or Super14 rugby that I have seen and Wykes is still like the skinny lock he was at school, though he is just as skilful as he was then. At the Super 14 level Wykes and Stanford should be bench players covering lock and 6. Of all the locks only Hockings has proved himself to have a good work rate and grunt.
Luke Jones I haven't talked about him above as a backrower or 2nd rower as it's a bit much to ask an 18 year old forward to make a difference a couple of months after leaving school. I've seen him in the 2008 and 2009 Oz Schools tournaments and, as a schools player, was similar in type to Hugh McMeniman skilful in the lineout and the open and with a high work rate and physicality in the tight.
He could be anything in our game and I wish that we could have kept him in Sydney, but I'm curious as to why he (and Hunt) were given a rookie contract and nothing else.