In this case for a full back I'd say a missed tackle or a knock on.

There no doubt in my mind that when Motu returns he'll go straight back to FB.



Byrne is good cover but thats all he is, cover.

Absolutely. Motu's carries are very important to us - I think he was third in the Opta stats at the time of his first injury last year. His defence is under-rated too.

Majority on here want the fullback just to be safe, nothing else. Look at all of the English fullbacks, all are decent in defence but offer nothing in attack. I know Byrne is Australian before anyone says

but he plays like an English fullback.

Ah right.



Byrne's missed 1 in 5 tackles. Tony missed 1 in 6 last season.



Byrne's made one 'error' per game. Tony made one every two games.



Which one was defensively dodgy again?

You have to love the myth " Motu Tony cant catch a ball and cant tackle "

That could be IFhe returns the injury is far worse than 1st feared

Noooooooooo





P.S Surely we don't have to turn this thread into a Byrne v Tony??!

Byrne v Tony v Briscoe

winner briscoe

Byrne v Tony v Briscoe v Hall

Byrne v Tony v Briscoe v Hall v Thorman v R.Horne

Just for completeness, Hall missed 1 in 4 tackles last season and made 1.4 errors per game. This is why it's not a "no-brainer" for Agar to include him at FB. I know I'm in a minority of one on here, but I'm not convinced about Hall. That said I'd rather see him at FB with Horne and Thorman in the halves than Thorman at FB and Washy/Horne in the halves.

TBF Hall did play in 17 positions last season.

And was flaky in most of them.

Not playing at fullback mainly, though. There, you have less tackles to make and they're pretty much always one-on-one with time to get into position and with the sole aim of bringing the ball carrier down (usually). That's much different to being at centre (possibly the hardest position to defend in).



(And all that's without taking into account the statistics possibly not being completely reliable, maybe.)

He did play a few games off the bench though so he does have a high error rate - 3rd highest per game of anyone in the competition last year.



Look, I do think Hall is an outstanding attacking talent. I'm just not convinced that he's robust enough in defence or decision-making. Having him as the last line of defence vs a very strong, physical Catalans team doesn't fill me with confidence and I'm not bothered that no one else shares this opinion. Just pointing out that there is evidence to suggest that he's not the next best thing, even though everyone else on here thinks he is.

That's no surprise for someone with his style of attacking game.







I'd have him at fullback ahead of Byrne anyway, so not even 'next best' for me.

Likewise.

You have an amazingly short memory Scott. Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me but I seem to remember the first few games of last season where Motu couldn't catch a bomb to save his life. Berrigan ending up dropping a kick off in one game becasue he moved over to cover for Motu who was cacking his pants. Dozens of people where booing around me in the south stand and screaming for him to be brought off, maybe that was a different Motu Tony? I was also at the Warrington away game where he struggled. It's no myth Scott, other teams know he has a weakness and pin point it.

He probably only dropped 4/5 all year. I remember all these idiots getting on his back around me because he dropped a kick off from Pat Richards, despite it somehow being rediculous to catch. I dont know how he did it but it was moving about all over the place and spinning about. We dropped a couple of his kicks in that game.

Mmmmm...fans critising a player are deemed idiots..........More like the Wakefield game where he was bloody attroucious.

To be fair though S Briscoe has made 5 errors already this season Motu made 7 overall last year and as you say a fair few must of come in the wakefield game

Think they all did........god awful display i must admit.....fair play to him though...got better as we went on...pity the team didnt...lol