Disagree, if you going to play him on an edge he requires attacking skills which we have seen nothing of this year.
If you going to play him as a middle then he needs to bend the line, again something we have seen very little of.
Cant pick a bloke just because he is good at the wrestle.
Pretty obvious Liu is playing edge out of necessity, not because he's our new edge backrower. Trent Robinson used him in the same role a lot as well. And he's 3 billion times better than KP
This whole middle who "bends the line" thing is redundant if they are no good in defensive effort areas, manipulating the ruck, winning the contact, front-loading their effort on D and doing the 1%ers. I for one am not keen on a forward pack full of Herman Ese'ese's
For mine, Tino, Mo and Wallace are essential middles with Liu, Jolliffe and McIntyre covering the bench rotations with Smith. Fermor and Fifita in the starting back row. Boyd inches out Clarke but I would take anybody else at this stage.
Four reasons to escape to Queensland: Sun, Surf, Sand & the Titans.
In regards to Lui, over the last 3 years at the Roosters he played 30 times at lock, 27 times at Front Row, 11 times from the interchange and 2 times at 2nd row. As such he has had actually more games at lock where I believe he is far better suited as he does possess ball skills and as others have said he is good defensively.
I don’t believe he is anywhere near effective at Front Row but as we have far too many middles and have an imbalance in our squad with Wallace, Lisone and Ese Ese who really cannot play big minutes at high intensity which makes our defence extremely susceptible which has been evident all year, we are playing Lui in the front row to compensate.
I am still of the view that we would better swapping Lui and Tino around which gives us a ball playing option at lock which Lui has had more experience at which gives us an option we currently don’t have. It would also help Sexton should we continue to persist with having the ball wider of the ruck on more occasions as a 2nd receiver which may bring out his running game which currently we don’t see
Raiders are flush with young hookers with Zac Woolford making an impressive debut today. With Adrian Trevilyan now third in line after Starling and Woolford, he may be one worth looking at.
No but there is more options than Proctor. Liu is not an edge backrower. See his stats from last night- nil offloads
Young Isaac had insane stats today with 109 metres and 30 tackles in only 47 minutes. Also Alick has very impressive stats this season and makes over 100 metres regularly and does a lot in defence. He is a 2nd rower and would appear not to be too far from moving up. Certainly we should be moving him up instead of Proctor when opportunities arise
Yeah, the club has done well to identify Alick. Rangey back rower with a unique skill set. Has some things he needs to work on defensively and a few effort based things he’s still developing but has some potential there.
Iszac F will play NRL but needs to fill out physically a bit still. His work rate and attention to detail is very similar to Tino.
I’ll do a wrap up of Titans players from both feeder games tomorrow. Some good performances from Titans boys across the board.
Summary of Titans squad members from weekend's Qcup games:
Bureigh 28 def. Cutters 8
Iszac Fa'asuamaleaui - strong overall performance, looking more comfortable with the pace and physicality. High involvement, big work rate, effort play is good. Regularly volunteering for tough carries. He's losing the contact on occasion against bigger bodies but has some room to fill out physically which will help this long term. 47 mins/109 metres/30 tackles (2 missed)
Jacob Alick - Being used more frequently to hit that hard unders line toward the left post before they set for a quick shift on the short side. Defensively his contact is improving. Sometimes gets caught out a little with poor inside pressure from marker. Played a solid game overall. 72mins/137m/23 tackles (1 missed)
Lofi Khan-Pereira - Really starting to find his groove as a top-tier finisher and broken field weapon. Scored his 2nd long range try in as many weeks. Scored another with pure pace to pounce on a grubber. Defensively he didn't have much work to do. Only had 7 runs total, needs to improve his involvement (70m was in one run). 129m and 2 tries.
Tony Francis - This guy isn't making the highlights reel at the moment, but his contributions are all really positive. Post contact metres, regularly beats first defender and attracts 3-4 to bring him down while still finding his front. Only 8 runs so much like Lofi, needs to find ways to get more involved. 111m (45 post contact).
Aaron Booth - 31 minutes. Got through his work but didn't stand out. Looks to stil be finding his role in that side.
Tweed 28 def. Pride 0
Paul Turner - Back at fullback and to be frank, he was red hot in some poor conditions. 196m/1 line break/2 line break assists/1 try assist/9 tackle breaks. Touched the ball 47 times (3rd most to hooker and halfback). Some highlights below:
Jojo Fifita did not play again. Not sure if injured, or demoted.
Late edit - Jojo was absent as he was with the QLD U19 squad.
Last edited by Hail Sezer; 18-05-22 at 08:21 AM.
Not sure if I am in the right post but we should go after Matt Burton with all the BS there he might just walk away come up North to get away from it all might get lucky
Burton is a good player no doubt but he's not what we need right now. Foran has already been hired to do that job.