Julian

Milford is goneskis.

I'm a mod yeah. Why?

What do other Canberra fans actually think of Milford? I know only know other Canberra fan who takes the game seriously enough to be worth listening to and he's been telling me for a month now that he thinks Milford is the next Michael Jennings and he's played lot of centre in lower grades in preparation for a stint there in first grade. Aside from the fact that it'd be fucking weird for a club with Wighton, Lee, Ferguson and Croker to try and turn a spine player into a centre, I don't really see it anyway tbh. I reckon the best comparison is Ben Barba - dominated Under 20s in the halves because it's such an individually geared comp but without quite the vision to be a top notch first grade half. I'm really starting to think fullback is his spot. And while for some reason it's blasphemy to bag Robinson on CricSim I've been kind of waiting for that bubble to burst too. He definitely not anywhere near the playmaking genius people around here would have you believe.

Yeah McCrone was a real genuine #6 coming through the grades, and it still shows a lot in what he does. When he had Dugan, Papalii and Ferguson all outside him on the right he really picked his runners well and created opportunities, especially when you played the ball on the far left and had a more classical backline sweep with Williams giving him the ball. His organisational game improved a lot last year but it was still sub par and I think it's really regressed this year. Whenever you think he might actually be close to getting dropped he pull out a really good performance though; this happened when Campese was coming back from injury (after McCrone had started the season really poorly) which gave Furner all the ammunition he needed to say Williams was a left half and then drop him.

Re: Williams

Reckon he's been pigeonholed as a left side only player which is really unfortunate given he played both sides of the ruck all through the grades and is clearly amongst the best two halves at the club. If you're going to turn McCrone into a hooker I reckon you need to bite the bullet and actually do it rather than making him play 60 minutes in the halves and then moving him. The backline crisis gives you an alternate way to stick Milford on the bench and still use him for impact without disrupting the halves too; I'd be starting with:

Left wing: Croker
Left centre: Wighton
Right centre: Thompson

And then bringing Milford on when he always comes on, but for a forward, with Thompson going into the back row rotation, Croker going to right centre, Robinson going to left wing and Milford playing fullback. Milford going straight to centre when you had injuries last week while Robinson stayed at the back was weird.

My best guess is:

1 Watson 2 Rogers 3 Cowan 4 Clarke 5 Hughes 6 Smith 7 Haddin 8 Siddle 9 Pattinson 10 Starc 11 Lyon

I'd definitely re-jig that batting order if I had my way but I'm happy enough with it as long as Khawaja and Faulkner don't end up playing. Suspending Warner from the warmups is absolutely fucking dumb though, would've been a better idea to let him play those and suspend him from the first test so he at least had decent prep for when he came in.

(Message was too long when I replied about Williams so I'll send a separate one)