yeah, what the hell would Peet, the club and the coaching team know anyhow.......

If anyone wants a lesson on how good he is, go and watch the Penrith game again. He went toe to toe with Leota, Fisher-Harris, Kenny and Yeo in that middle and was absolutely unbelievable. I think there's a misconception that he doesn't have a running game but there is a difference between somebody with no running game and somebody playing to a gameplan and being selfless by getting quick ball to the teams biggest attacking threats. When O'Neill runs the ball, his average gain per carry is very good (8.11m) and comfortably above guys like Leeming (6.54) and Litten (7.1m) and similar to guys like Danny Walker (8.22) and Andy Ackers (8.54). All of those are more renowned as being hookers with a running threat. Only guys like Clark and Ipappe sit above 9 metres per carry but that is the main part of their game, unlike Brad O'Neill.

I'm not daft enough to question his ability, but this one did raise an eyebrow given the injury he is still out with for another 4 months. Its a big contract to give when there must still be an element of doubt about his return

If you are judging a player by how many tries they score….with all due respect you don’t really have a clue about rugby.

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Appreciate the actual response that some people seem incapable of.

I'm suspicious how good a lot of people would think he is if we didn't have French and Field scoring and creating tries for fun.

We had some of that criticism of Harry Smith for a bit.

Also Sam Powell was good at these effort areas, maybe not as good, but I believe he got a lot of stick and people called for more attacking hookers.

…but we do have Field and French, so I’m not sure what the point it.

Each player brings their own individual parts to a team effort.

If you don’t see what he brings to the team and what he does to allow Field and French to do what they do then again, I’m guessing you don’t fully appreciate the game fully.

More importantly for O’Neil, we have Smith who does the bulk of the organising which allows O’Neil to get us into the right areas of the pitch to set up the plays and provide a high level damaging effort role in the middle both sides of the ball, which whilst Powell has in style in reality they are not in the same league as O’Neils ability to do this.

I’d actually say Field and French are lucky to have him doing what he does in the middle creating fatigue and slowing down the slide defence which creates space on the edges for the likes of them and others in the team to exploit.

Like I said earlier it’s not all about who puts the ball down over the goal line, just like Leeming who generally comes on once O’Neil has softened up the middles.

Yeah it does seem like odd timing. I suspect it's more of a change to his salary, salary structure and bonuses across future years and they just whacked on an extra 2 years.

The team has such a good balance, with each player bring their strengths to the party and covering other players weaknesses and vice versa and that spreads throughout the whole team. Field and French are as lucky to have somebody like Harry Smith, as he is lucky to have them.

I do think O'Neill is a bit different. The point still stands that he's lucky to have those strike players and a game managing scrum half like Harry Smith and they're all lucky to have him but unlike somebody like Smith, I do think O'Neill has an ability to do more with the ball 'if' he was asked to do so. He can run a ball and cause loads of problems but I sense him doing a Clark and taking a couple of scoots a set isn't part of the the gameplan and he's humble enough to play his role and hand over the ball to the attacking weapons we have. That leaves him fresh to do his thing, which has he showed in the WCC game, is to be the leader of all the effort areas and to really take it to the opposition in defence. It's easy to forget how young the lad is as well. To be doing what he's doing, playing in the middle of the field, at the age of 22 is exceptional and he'll continue to improve. I wouldn't swap him for any other hooker in Superleague.

I wouldnt swap for any other hooker in Superleague as he is the best in Superleague wthout a doubt.