Ranty Ranty Rant Rant : Mon May 03, 2010 10:32 am
It seems to me that our priorities as to coach is to have someone who can attract the best foreign players, get the best out of the squad and develop local talent to SL level. Of this, Walters can only do the first and fails in a big way on the last point, which is the most important one.The future of our club is not Bell or Sa, it is the likes of Mounis, Vaccari, Bently and Bosc. Our future is the local talent, not just to define ourselves as a French side (for SL licence purposes, which is live or die for us), not just to promote the French national side (which gets us media attention and therefore cash) but also because developing the local lads is the less expensive option by far (balancing our books and turning a long-term profit).
Looking at our available squad, it is clear that we desperately need a first-choice FB and could possibly do with more firepower up front. While Pelo should be in the starting lineup, he should be on the wing, or maybe in the centres, but not at FB. Playing him at FB does him no favours and does nothing to help the club. What we should do is either trust our academy or UTC FB to fill the role (e.g. Stacul) or we should look for an available player that we could swap for short term. If there is a SL player available, great, but in keeping with looking to develop the French national side (and possibly score a contract with a promising French FB) we should also look to the LER and the TOXIII squad.
If we are looking to get the best possible player we need to be able to offer someone of good stature and there is an obvious choice: Bell. Former SOO player, he would be a marquee signing for any club in the LER or Championship, where he would probably be playing closer to his level and could impress. With him gone we could play our first-choice Wing pairing of Vaccari and Pelo, while still having Baile, Raguin and (apparently) Sa to play in the centres.
We are not going to make the GF this year, let alone win it, so we should do our best to get our future investments in order and get next year's talent blooded. This means playing them in their prefered positions and letting the more experienced players cover unfamiliar positions. I would think the team sheet should look like this:
FB: Stacul (or new signing)
Wing: Pelo, Vaccari
Centres: Raguin, Baile
Halves: Bosc, Gigot/Guash/Bartheau (rotate)
LF: Mounis
Back Row: Elima, Carlaw
Front Row: Fakir, Kane, Gossard
Bench: McGuire, Dallas, Guisset, Sa
Bench Rotation: Simon, Martins, Casty
Not only is a team-sheet looking to the future, but I think it is almost the best side we can field with our current injuries.
Now, RL is not my mastermind subject, so I may be glaringly mistaken, but
if not then a couple things are very clear:
1 - Bell can only be in our squad because of the FB issue, we must get rid of him asap and use his salary to either retain our current players or get someone useful.
2 - Sa is only needed so that McGuire can interchange with Bently, otherwise McGuire would be SO and Sa would not be in the side. When Fakir returns from injury I would see him making the Bench in Sa's spot.
3 - When Greenshields and Walker return to the side we have the FB issue more than covered, with added pace to the centres, so if we want to sign another marquee player it needs to be either a world-beating SO or a world-beating Prop.
4 - Dallas is a great player, he's not adjusted to the higher pace of SL, but his talent cannot be denied. However, at LF he is an expensive replacement for a highly talented LF, Mounis, who in my mind should not only be our first-choice LF, but also our captain. This means that we are paying alot of money to play someone out of position, or to hamper the development of the club's future.
So, we need to swap Bell for the best available FB and then offload him at the end of the season. We need to play for next year, developing our French talent and thinking of the excess foreign baggage we have on board. At the end of the season we want to sell Sa to Salford, where he will be appreciated for the talent he has, and promote from within. Kane, Mounis, Pelo, Vaccari all start in their prefered positions.
And for next year we also want to have agreed a number of our academy players who will go to TO for the Championship season, instead of stagnating on the sidelines or wasting away at UTC.
