This is going to be an adventurous post based on an adventurous theory. Please skip this post if you like reading about facts and proven theories. This is a bit of conjecture. No Flames please as I don't even know if I can write this up well as it is a half thought only.
Whenever when following the black caps the selectors picked a team the fans would pick we lost badly. Whenever the selections were boring and stodgy leading to pages of complaints before the match the team did very well and exceeded all expectations.
This team for the Round one was more like a fan picked exciting team than a stodgy boring one an experienced coach would pick
1)
Metcalf at 7 was adventurous and was either going to pay off in spades or be a clusterfuck and it proved to be the latter at least in this first game.
2) Egan playing the whole 80 and four forwards on the bench, Was a gamble on Egan's endurance. Did it work? I guess so. Nonetheless it was a risk.
3)
Barnett to lock at the last minute to counter them putting their big guy at lock. Was an extravagant risk like a fan would come up with and not a long serving NRL coach.
4) Capewell swapped Edges to the 11 jersey - I understand he played much of last year at 12. That was a gamble probably to bring out the best of him and
Niukore. Did it work. It didn't seem to. Unless they swapped on game day and didn't pay on the side their number indicated.
5)
Metcalf was given the kicking duties when Pompey is more experienced. Another gamble when a stodgy decision would have been to stick with "the devil we know" ie Pompey.
6) In a move fans would make Leka and Vaimauga were selected on the bench, I don't know what to say about this as then they weren't actually used when the game was alive and in the balance.
7) CHt to 6 was a gamble ahead of the more proven
TMM. This one seemed to pay off.
8) Tuapiki to the wing was a move the fans liked - a stodgy decision drawing ire from the fans would have been Ed Kosi to the wing. Yet in a match where we struggled for PCMs in the first twenty minutes his hit ups would have been quite valuable compared to Tuapiki's.
I am not advocating he should have done any of these conservative alternative stodgy decisions. But I am making a post that I saw this on the cards when the team list was named that we had picked a team the fans would pick rather than a stodgy stuck in the mud team the fans would have disliked but might have got the job across the line.
