may be required sooner than we hoped. Lynagh / Green / Morris? Any ideas on their fitness status?
Don’t think we’ll see Morris again this season due to repeated concussions. Lynagh has been injured for quite a while now. I’d guess it’s Green to start next week with Marchant moving across to the wing.
Also Marley likely to be out, we need two wingers and a Fab, guess it will be Earle, March and Green.
not serious but could go for 5 centres.
Lang - FB
Marchant
Taps
Lasike
Northmore
Campo to cover on the bench
Morris said he might be back for the Bath game, on Quins Live.
Green at FB seems like the best option. He seems to prefer it, from what he has said.
Lasike and/or Lang could start against Leicester, if Murley is out. So our backline could be:
9 Care
10 Smith
11 Northmore
12 Lasike
13 Lang
14 Marchant
15 Green
Edit: I have put Northmore in for Earle. I am tired and completely forgot Luke, for some reason!!! Earle on the bench.
The back line selection is going to be so tough. I don’t think we should be going with Northmore and Marchant on the wings as we’ll miss them too much in the centres. Hopefully Murley’s injury is only precautionary and Morris/Lynagh are close to a return.
However Earle is the best winger (apart from maybe Green) we have in terms of name and reputation so I’m hoping he snaps up a chance like this. I’d go with (but with the caveat anyone outside Smith could be brilliant):
11) Earle
12) Lasike
13) Northmore
14) Marchant
15) Green
Green was far more involved in the game when Mike was sent off yesterday. He looks better when involved and it's too our advantage to have him in the game as much as possible. He has to play 15.
While Green has been generally excellent for us so far, I would point out that he had an absolute shocker in defence against Wasps - 14 tackles attempted, 7 missed.
Yes I agree his tackle completion rate was poor yesterday (I imagine that could explain PG's reluctance to select him). He seems a little keen in D sometimes and gets out of position and also wants to put a dominant hit in when sometimes all that's called for is a tackle...I imagine those stats prob were not helped by 1 man down in the backs 2nd half. I think his running game is 1st class though and I love his drive to make it through the first tackle.
Given the space that he and Marchant had to be covering in the backfield after the red, I’ll forgive him for the missed tackles.
I’d be happy to go into the Tigers game with Lynagh, Marchant covering wings and Green at fullback.
I thought Marchant was brilliant yesterday, looks like he’s getting back to his old self.
Given the space that he and Marchant had to be covering in the backfield after the red, I’ll forgive him for the missed tackles.
It would be helpful to know how many of those missed tackles were in the second half, certainly
If I remember correctly from looking at it at half time, he'd already missed at least 3 by the break.
Green’s defence has been excellent most of the season...
Yes, it has. Just saying it was a big problem yesterday, unfortunately. Plenty of mitigation, including the frankly patchwork nature of the backline defence long before Brown went off, but he did get bumped too often. Plenty to work on.
Yes, it has. Just saying it was a big problem yesterday, unfortunately. Plenty of mitigation, including the frankly patchwork nature of the backline defence long before Brown went off, but he did get bumped too often. Plenty to work on.
Have to agree Jammy. He steps in a lot and seems to back his pace to recover which works 50 metres out but harder inside your own 22. That said, his chase down and tackle on Fakitoa was excellent.
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