Marcus's Bicycle wrote:10 tackles a game doesn't make you a tackling machine. After criticism of the lack of open play in a recent international he suggested if you don't like scrums or lineouts you should watch Rugby League. I agree with him and I do.
I do agree though that apart from the front rowers and the 7 foot high jumpers there's loads of RU players who would excel in RL. Pity there's no money to attract them anymore.
Where did you get the 10 tackles from? And number of tackles isn't the be all and end all, it's how and when you make big tackles that impacts a game. In any case he often makes 20+ tackles a game which is high for union. Technically he's very good, gets under players and stops them in their tracks, few RL players can do that these days - Tommy L is one of them, Danny H has done a few in his time as well. He makes a big impact in the tackle at important points of games that shift the balance of play significantly.
He of course won't leave RU, but that type of player I'd have.
Should we be looking elsewhere outside of rugby for athletes who can catch a ball and handle a ball, there must be thousands of decent standard college/ex NFL players that are never going to earn any money whatsoever just based on numbers alone. I don't know if TW actually bothered to do open days but could it be worth spending a couple of days down at places like Jacksonville at the Jags and seeing if there's any talent.
