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#Post#: 53561--------------------------------------------------
Re: Gustard Quins squad too old for too long
DIR By: JammyGit
Date: November 27, 2020, 5:50 am
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Being honest about the problems with our squad is a good sign,
not a reason to batter him over the head. Judge him on whether
his attempts to solve it work.
Look, our squad has been pretty bad for a while. One of the
reasons for that is we pay big bucks to big name players who
do/did not produce on a regular enough basis at a high enough
level to be worth the coin. Sinckler was frequently pilloried on
here for being better for England than for us. Robshaw spent a
lot of time on the treatment table and his form was patchy for a
while at the end. Brown's been miles down on his best and
frequently injured. Care has oscillated between great and
disastrous, and has also started to get injured a lot. Marler's
been away a lot and has also been injured. Marchant is
presumably on good money and since gallavanting off to NZ he's
been poor. These are the guys who should have been the core of
the team.
I do think it's fair to point out he's signed some pretty old
players - Ashton, Cavubati, Baldwin - but the signature signings
have been of a good age profile IMO.
I didn't read the article as excuses, I read it as a pretty
blunt assessment of how we've underperformed for a long time. I
think people are reading far too much into a couple of lines of
comment, tbh.
#Post#: 53562--------------------------------------------------
Re: Gustard Quins squad too old for too long
DIR By: Mr_B
Date: November 27, 2020, 5:51 am
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certainly doesn't come across well if that's what he meant and
if so why bring in and play the splash over Murley and let Gabs
go or have Green over Lynagh, we have some great young talent in
house already if he wants that approach.
#Post#: 53564--------------------------------------------------
Re: Gustard Quins squad too old for too long
DIR By: JammyGit
Date: November 27, 2020, 5:55 am
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Ibitoye wanted more money than he was worth. Murley gets loads
of games considering his age. Green is a player who can start
playing now and be part of the club for a long time (if he's
good enough and not just another Tim Swiel), and Lynagh is a
year or two off being a starter.
Wing has been a problem for us and having Ashton does raise the
age profile but also gives us something we can't get from any of
our other players.
#Post#: 53573--------------------------------------------------
Re: Gustard Quins squad too old for too long
DIR By: Mr_B
Date: November 27, 2020, 6:31 am
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But thats the point on youngsters, they aren't the finished
goods, you need to play them there to build the confidence to
get the experience to build the team, agree with all your points
by the way Jammy, I was answering the post above from never
sleep suggesting Guzzy was just saying badly that he wanted to
build a young team as we did when we went down. My point
although badly put I guess was we had quality youngsters to
blood if that was the case. We could play the youngsters and get
away with it in the lower league when we went down, they had a
fantastic season full of confidence by the time they came back
into the prem, we don't have that luxury now, you can pick a
couple of youngsters to integrate in certain games unless you
have no choice, Guzzy still picked the majority of the squad we
have now. You cant hire old heads like Ashton etc then complain
about your aging team profile, yes Gabs went for money so is
Ashton on lower salary than Gabs, I doubt it? Ashtons a better
player yes but Gabs would only improve with coaching and game
time, that was a conscious decision Guzzy took so how do you
complain then about an aging team profile.
#Post#: 53574--------------------------------------------------
Re: Gustard Quins squad too old for too long
DIR By: Monte
Date: November 27, 2020, 6:41 am
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Winning the Premiership’was an anomaly’ really do not care much
for that. The boys had a brilliant team ethos and worked very
hard for that year but for whatever reason could not continue to
build from there. But do not accept it was an anomaly
#Post#: 53575--------------------------------------------------
Re: Gustard Quins squad too old for too long
DIR By: Boonie
Date: November 27, 2020, 6:43 am
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In the seasons where we attacked with flair, we let in a bunch
of tries, but we scored more, so it didn't matter at the end of
the game. Quite happy with 10 tries in a game if six of them are
ours. England appear to have moved to a game based on defence,
but that is not the only way to play.
#Post#: 53582--------------------------------------------------
Re: Gustard Quins squad too old for too long
DIR By: Brown Bottle
Date: November 27, 2020, 7:01 am
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--- Quote from: Monte link ---
>
> Winning the Premiership’was an anomaly’ really do not care
much for that. The boys had a brilliant team ethos and worked
very hard for that year but for whatever reason could not
continue to build from there. But do not accept it was an
anomaly
>
--- End Quote ---
To be fair Conor O'Shea said at the time that it came a couple
of years earlier than they had been planning for.
#Post#: 53583--------------------------------------------------
Re: Gustard Quins squad too old for too long
DIR By: toast
Date: November 27, 2020, 7:02 am
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--- Quote from: Monte link ---
>
> Winning the Premiership’was an anomaly’ really do not care
much for that. The boys had a brilliant team ethos and worked
very hard for that year but for whatever reason could not
continue to build from there. But do not accept it was an
anomaly
>
--- End Quote ---
Blo*dy good anomaly though wasn’t it!
#Post#: 53584--------------------------------------------------
Re: Gustard Quins squad too old for too long
DIR By: JammyGit
Date: November 27, 2020, 7:05 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Mr_B link ---
>
> But thats the point on youngsters, they aren't the finished
goods, you need to play them there to build the confidence to
get the experience to build the team, agree with all your points
by the way Jammy, I was answering the post above from never
sleep suggesting Guzzy was just saying badly that he wanted to
build a young team as we did when we went down. My point
although badly put I guess was we had quality youngsters to
blood if that was the case. We could play the youngsters and get
away with it in the lower league when we went down, they had a
fantastic season full of confidence by the time they came back
into the prem, we don't have that luxury now, you can pick a
couple of youngsters to integrate in certain games unless you
have no choice, Guzzy still picked the majority of the squad we
have now. You cant hire old heads like Ashton etc then complain
about your aging team profile, yes Gabs went for money so is
Ashton on lower salary than Gabs, I doubt it? Ashtons a better
player yes but Gabs would only improve with coaching and game
time, that was a conscious decision Guzzy took so how do you
complain then about an aging team profile.
>
--- End Quote ---
There's a big difference between "young players who you can
build the team around" and "players who are too young to build
the team around just yet". Like, Exeter obviously brought
through Sam and Joe Simmonds alongside their other youngsters,
but they still had to play a waiting game and have players like
Thomas Waldrom and Gareth Steenson there.
Actually, Exeter are a pretty good model here: they've managed
to create a tight knit squad of players, many of them they've
produced themselves, who are likely to be playing for many more
years to come. That's the ideal - but in doing so, they've also
signed experienced players who filled gaps or were the ideal
people for the youngsters to develop behind: Lachie Turner,
Santiago Cordero, Dave Dennis, Thomas Waldrom, Julian Salvi,
Jonny Gray, Stuart Hogg, Alex Cuthbert, Matt Kvesic, Nic White,
Ollie Devoto, Greg Holmes, Geoff Parling, Michele Campagnaro,
Moray Low, etc
At no point did Exeter just chuck the kids in and hope for the
best; they made sure they were promoted as and when the time was
right. We have no idea if 19-year-old Louis Lynagh is ready yet.
Murley's just turned 21 and has 35 appearances for us already,
which is mad. Marcus Smith is 21 and has 87 appearances(!). So
clearly when we think players are good enough we're willing to
play them, but I think people might be underplaying just how
crazy it is that players this young are playing this much pro
rugby already.
For comparison - Sam Simmonds is 26 and has 77 Exeter
appearances. His brother is 24 and has 85. These guys are not
callow youth, but more importantly the bulk of their development
has not happened by picking them for the Exeter 1st XV before
their time. We view them as talented youngsters, but there's a
world of difference (and a lot of years) between them and people
like Murley, Smith, Lynagh.
You don't want to miss out on players like that, and you don't
want to damage them or the club by relying on them too early, so
you bring in good players to bridge the gap. Of course, you
actually need to have the good youngsters in the first place,
and you also need the money to make the signings (and not be
spending a huge chunk of your wage bill on players who are no
longer providing value for money).
Quins' academy has been fitful since the COS days, so I really
don't see the problem with Quins doing things like signing Chris
Ashton to add some experience and talent to a fairly callow and
often malfunctioning back three, while also looking to sign
younger players who can be first-teamers for the forseeable
future in guys like Louw, Esterhuizen, etc. They're both 26 -
they're experienced, international quality players who also have
the peaks of their careers to come. Tyrone Green is 22 and more
of a gamble, but likely a cheap one, and we're not swimming in
quality in the backs.
I don't want to relitigate the whole Ibitoye thing but the guy
has big flaws in his game and never really improved them. He is
not better than Chris Ashton, and if he ever becomes better than
Chris Ashton it will be some point in the future. That would be
fine if he wasn't making demands beyond his current worth during
a pandemic. So for the shorter term, having the guy with
hundreds of Premiership appearances, 24 tries in 23 Top14
matches for Toulon, 20 international tries, a heap of medals and
a genuine "point of difference" makes more sense than the wildly
erratic promising youngster.
#Post#: 53598--------------------------------------------------
Re: Gustard Quins squad too old for too long
DIR By: Mr_B
Date: November 27, 2020, 10:13 am
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As I said I agree with you but that is not what I was answering.
regardless of all that you still cant hire older players then
use that as an excuse for why you play so badly Ashton used as
just one example..
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