His defensive deficiencies were evident last week yet he persisted with him in the centres and even after numerous occasions early in the game he refused to hook him. It's not like he picked and persisted with a usually good defensive player who just had a poor game.
The numerous occasions early in the game were what lost them the match though. Whether he hooked him or not afterwards is irrelevant. I don't think last week was a justification to drop him; certainly not for Blair who in his small stint was terrible in defence and cost them a try too. Blair's fucking useless IMO.
hahaha beat melbourne with 15 men pretty much with your best prop and two second rowers out injured. I thought mccrone, buttriss, wighton and the props were excellent.
Problem with Canberra is, next week they'll probably play like total bludgers. They get raped by a dud Cowboys side, sneak home against the Warriors, but then beat an unbeaten Storm side down in Melbourne. They're a prank on the NRL competition.
Should've been hooked after 15 minutes... after that he was still making crucial errors including Fergusson's try right before half time that played just as big a role in costing them the game. Blair is just a superior centre both in defence and attack anyway, O'neil is an out and out winger.
Fair enough. I just don't think Bellamy can be blamed for not hooking him 15 minutes in. By that standard Sheck shoud've been hooked in Rd1. It's pretty harsh to take the bloke off after 15 minutes. Then again you and I agree that he should never have been there in the first place. As for Blair, I think he's shit but I've always thought so. He's not a FG standard centre either IMO.
Buttriss suffered a compound fracture to a finger halfway through the first half. Got it stitched at halftime and played another 18 minutes. Fmd
