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doedin wrote:He got shoved into the deep end very young in his career - remember the taxi up from Goldenacre to take place on bench in Euro game? He has great props to learn from on both sides of the scrum and has probably been tucked away to develop physically and technically. I suspect he will come good and go onto play for us and Scotland on regular basis. As well as rugby I hear via friends of kids that he is a really nice guy too and works really hard on his game. He'll do ok.
Tichtheid wrote:WP has just turned 34, whilst Murray McCallum has just turned 24. Cockers doesn't seem to take chances and the further down the numbers on the jerseys go he seems to take fewer chances, McCallum will get his chance when Cockers deems him ready.
I've been a bit frustrated with the philosophy to be honest, I think players like Charlie Shiel and McCallum could have been further on than they are, but it's difficult to argue that it seems to be working in terms of our results and performances, and in fact winning whilst playing badly like against Cardiff and Scarlets in February is a sign of a resilience that we have lacked for a long time.
I want McCallum to come in and play with a bunch of hard-bitten DavePearson who never let the heads fall, same with Shiel, playing behind a pack of bad DavePearson, who can flip an offload when needed is what we want.
JDCSR wrote:Interesting to see Aungier moving to Connaught over the other side of the Irish sea. Someone like McCallum would really benefit from starting every week at a third pro team. Furlong, Porter, Bent and Abdaladze is some quartet to have to get past though so that route via another province is ideal.
JDCSR wrote:Interesting to see Aungier moving to Connaught over the other side of the Irish sea. Someone like McCallum would really benefit from starting every week at a third pro team. Furlong, Porter, Bent and Abdaladze is some quartet to have to get past though so that route via another province is ideal.
JDCSR wrote:It's a shame, to be losing players of the quality of Matt Smith is tragic.
If there was any hope of a third pro team then I'm guessing COVID will have killed it.
The Incredible Shug wrote:
I think Murray's one of many players who would benefit from a third pro team (that probably wouldn't be able to beat Zebre). It's just being able to play games.
robdinsdale wrote:The Incredible Shug wrote:
I think Murray's one of many players who would benefit from a third pro team (that probably wouldn't be able to beat Zebre). It's just being able to play games.
I'm sure folk in Aberdeen or wherever would be delighted to turn out to watch a team get horsed by the likes of Zebre all season, every season.
The Scottish game is in a bit of a difficult position in that the SRU are clearly doing some things right and are actually developing more and better young players than they were, say, 10 years ago, but the playing base is still small and the international standard core of that group needs to be playing meaningful games.
It's a shame that the London Scottish thing hasn't worked out, because a Championship level club would be ideal for the late bloomers etc.
Hopefully the Super 6 will provide some sort of stepping stone for players because the gap between the old Premiership and pro rugby was massive.
biffer wrote:This is part of the difficulty for me, and something that Cockers highlighted when he first arrived. In the past we've often conditioned young players to lose, so setting up another team to do that would be counterproductive.
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