The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

A lionhearted prediction part II: wingers

Roar Guru
23rd March, 2013
20

Flyers, speed merchants, bulldozers, wrecking balls and genuine tryscorers.

These are all words we have used to describe the great wingers of the modern era.

This includes names such as such as Ben Tune, Rupeni Caucaunibuca, Inga Tuigamala, Joe Roff and of course the dominant Jonah Lomu.

But what might be the best fit for the two wingers in my predicted Wallabies XV to play the Lions?

Is it important to match your opponents strengths or is it better to define how your team will play?

I think the Wallabies have a lot to choose from, with genuine flyers like Lachie Turner, Tom Kingston, Henry Speight coupled with strong runners such as Israel Folau, Digby Ioane, Joe Tomane, Chris Feauai-Sautia, Cooper Vuna and Peter Betham.

Throw into that mix playmaking wingers such as James O’Connor and potentially Jesse Mogg and there are some important decisions to be made.

In some ways this exercise of selecting players one by one is a bit of flawed process, because each player needs to be viewed in context.

Advertisement

For example, two powerful wingers might not be necessary where strength already exists in the centres to carry the ball forward.

In my view the front runners at the moment are Ioane (on past performances) and James O’Connor (on form and past performances).

The much maligned three amigos still offer significant strike-power to this Wallabies team – should they get functioning.

With this said, there is still a lot of rugby to play, and excuse the pun, I would not be surprised to see some bolters come through and push for selection.

Roarers, who do you think makes the best fit in 11 and 14?

close