Pocock should be striving to be the best forward in the world

Have to give you that one. The way league is played these days it would be tough. I suspect they could adjust to the interchange - imagine Moore coming back off the bench after having a sideline look at the game.

Yes one eye , these great players David Pocook and Steven Moore have courage but I always ask the question, could they compete in the toughest and fastest football in the world Rugby League , I don't believe they would .

Pooperardy is a sensational backrow. The back row is an asset not a problem

One of the great things about rugby is the diversity of opinion. All of the greats through time have had a love/hate following. Having said that it stands to reason Pocock is in the great class already. I cannot recall (and I'm a bit older than a few) of any player that everyone loved or hated but many who were loved when they were on your team and hated when on the opposition. At tonight's game I will be on the side of the negative following and will not be able to tolerate anything he does - well or otherwise (not hard to tell where my loyalties lie) but when the gold comes on I feel a flutter in my heart when he's near the ball as the expectation of something fantastic is about to happen. As Richie McCaw is the current benchmark of greatness (as seems to be the point of the article in the first place - hidden behind Pococks shortfalls) lets not forget the continuous and accurate cry of "get him onside". How can the best have this flaw? Great reading the views of the Roar followers and I would have loved this to have been around in the 70's and 80's when real rugby was played! (come and get me)

Exactly the way I feel about Richie. Not saying Pocock is anywhere near the status of that legend yet, but Richie made me love and hate watching him at the same time.

You don't have to look hard to find such bravado associated with many collectives, in the way of geeing up the troops. It's more difficult to find 'world domination' stated as an individual aim (psychopaths apart).

Agree entirely, in fact I think Fardy made a better contribution than Hooper.

the All Blacks wrote on a whiteboard in 2013. “We are the most dominant team in the history of the world”. They might not spout it publicly, but that is their stated goal.

omg, the only reason it would be pococks fault is because there was only one of him. i agree that people make out that it was because pocock couldn't jump in the lineout or he wasn't a great ball carrier blah blah blah etc. what a load of BS first and foremost pocock probably has a near 100% tackle success rate. I've told the kids i coach that its cool to be a try scorer but its much more cooler to be the one that stops try scorers. pocock pulling jSavea from behind was an epic tackle that only a few in world rugby could've made. tackling is a much more important skill than ball carrying and pocock is a tackling terminator i love hating pocock. he's a major honoured enemy.

i still agree to a point with you zero. pocock had to be negated as a single point of failure to the aus forward pack. Richie didn't change his lines he just kept going for the ball and tried to be everywhere and do everything at once. zero; pocock is a great player and great players deserve respect. pocock gets spades of respect from the ABs. if you wanna win you don't let someone like pocock have free reign, but also you don't just focus on that single person. u have to look at the overall team and attack as many weak points as possible. aus forward packs major weakness is that theyre just not very effective without pocock, hence tie pocock up and you've just reduced aus' strike power by over 50%, and I'm probably under estimating his value.

Yeah, I reckon training a tall back to be a lineout jumper, like Folau or Kuridrani, might work. However, I don't know whether it would be too much on top of their other training or whether the Super Teams would participate, because I don't know that a player could learn to do it well enough for a test match in a couple of weeks.

Agree with that ... he played at a much consistently high level than I had credited him for. My whole perspective changed as I watched more of him in both the RC and RWC

Kane to be fair, the Boks not only had Matfield and Botha but they had the kicking game that the men in black could not/did not handle. That more than the lineout dominance handed the Boks the series 3-0 Understanding their principal weakness at that time, Sir GH's focus was to defuse that weapon much more than the lineout threat. Come 2010 the high ball threat was no longer ... in the lineout, Brad Thorn and Sam Whitelock (who started his career very well) steadied the ship.

Harsh. Fardy had his best season in gold last year, and was one of our best players in the RWC.

He doesn't have to be a line out specialist but just an option. He's tall enough to be.

You'd think the RWC site would have decent archives!. (The only reason I can think of besides arrant stupidity is that it might be publishable). Thanks for hypothesizing, but really, it seems that you and I and no doubt many others are still pretty much in the dark re the strategic science in this facet. Good topic for an expert post (if anyone's out there -- hint, hint).

id back hooper execution. world class in skill level.

thats a good point peter. 10cm shorter turns into 15 or 20cm (maybe) when you add arms. not so sure the props are able to do a good job lifting skelton tho. id guess technically possible not really well enough to make him a viable option. i guess you touched on that with the speed thing tho.

the only stats I can find, espn, have attack and defence. They do not have lineout stats per player. Hooper was used sometimes for catching not every game though. We lost 3 lineouts from 10 in the final. I can't remember if Hooper was the target in any of those. Super rugby you can easily get away with 3 jumpers, Hooper or conversely Pocock are options there against most teams (not crusaders or stormers) At intl level the best locks and other jumpers are put in 1 team. What I said about Hooper applies on jump speed, jump height and short arms. I do not see the point of losing a lineout option player to lift him though since that person could just swap positions and be the one lifted. I lack the expertise on how 4 genuine line options work in moving around. There are 8 forwards. Hooker throws leaves 7 players. 4 jumpers means 3 lifters. So the jumper at 1 is lifted by the hooker and say LHP. The no 2 jumper is lifted by the LHP and say THP. The 3rd jumper is lifted by the THP and the say the openside. The 4th jumper is short of one of who is lifting. So the lifters move around as well. So with 3 lifters really 3 lineout options should e sufficient but as demonstrated against Boks and NZ it does not seem to be.

Yes Peter, I've also often thought of Izzy as a super line-out jumper. For the sake of the argument, can we leave Big Will's apparent/alleged limitations out of it. Better to imagine three jumpers (say, Simmons, Kane D., and Fardy), and then add Hooper as another option, lifted by one of the taller pieces of timber, and thereby mitigating the much discussed weakness in not having four. Would that not at least sow doubt in the mind of the opposition, spreading their ability to attack the line-out? Re Hooper's ability to execute, we had many successful examples last year in the Tahs, and I'm sure I saw it in the World Cup (when I say 'many', I mean 1-2 times per game). He gets right up there, usually turns and throws while still in the air. Haven't seen a stuff-up yet. P.S. PeterK, do you know if we can still access RWC game stats? SANZAR's are readily accessible, but the World Cup nerds seem to have buried their match archives, i.e, individuals etc., can be dug out, but not the match by match stats. Any assistance much appreciated..