What's your strongest possible 2022 Canberra Raiders line up? That's what we are asking the readers of The Greenhouse. We're looking at the "Locks and contenders" for each position in the team in a special series of articles. Some players have clearly locked down their spot but we're looking at all the contenders for places in the Green Machine's top 17. For contentious positions, we're supplementing the discussion with a series of polls... and in the second of those polls, we're asking: Who should be fill the No. 9 jersey in 2022?
Remember, we're looking at the strongest possible team, irrespective of injuries.
I'm still on the Hodgo for 25-30, then move to lock, so Starlo can come on. I think with a lack of ball players in our squad, using Hodgo as a 1st reciever/link man should work.
Seems a high risk game we're playing at 9 with all our eggs in the Starling and Trevilyan basket. I'll be concerned if Trevilyan hasn't pushed himself into the squad by the end of the year. I don't see Starling as a long term fix - lacks a lot of subtleties and all round skills of the top dummy halves around. Would love to be proven wrong and see him blossom into the next Damien Cook.
I'd go with Starling. I think we play better, faster and more direct with him on the field. I've seen too many Hodgo miskicks on the 3rd tackle to rate his game management as any higher than Starlings currently. Looked like the body was failing him last season and that was clouding his decision making and execution suffered too.
I really don't like the Hodgo at lock transfer either. It gives us two small middles out there to target (Starling and Hodgo), only one of whom can tackle or move laterally. It makes us a less mobile pack. It does give some ball playing benefit. But being a decent ball player who meets none of the other physical criteria for the position (small, slow, no power, no footwork, poor middle defender, no yards game) is not a worthwhile trade off imo.
Adding the Fog should solve our ball playing- it's one thing he CAN do better than GWilly. I want my lock to be mobile and dynamic like Young or with good hands and vision but still able to handle himself in the middle of the park with size, footwork and aggro like Whitehead. Haven't seen enough of Hola yet, but he's another contender.
I absolutely think Ricky will pick Hodgo. But I will tear my hair out when he plays 4 crash balls in the 15m zone on umpteen sets until he finally tricks the opposition who can't believe he'd throw a 75th crash ball and we score from it and Hodgo is a genius but we score 13.5 pts a game for the first 8 weeks.
Having written off Rapana last year only to see him play a blinder, Josh Hodgson- over to you!
BadnMean wrote: ↑January 12, 2022, 6:44 am
I'd go with Starling. I think we play better, faster and more direct with him on the field. I've seen too many Hodgo miskicks on the 3rd tackle to rate his game management as any higher than Starlings currently. Looked like the body was failing him last season and that was clouding his decision making and execution suffered too.
I really don't like the Hodgo at lock transfer either. It gives us two small middles out there to target (Starling and Hodgo), only one of whom can tackle or move laterally. It makes us a less mobile pack. It does give some ball playing benefit. But being a decent ball player who meets none of the other physical criteria for the position (small, slow, no power, no footwork, poor middle defender, no yards game) is not a worthwhile trade off imo.
Adding the Fog should solve our ball playing- it's one thing he CAN do better than GWilly. I want my lock to be mobile and dynamic like Young or with good hands and vision but still able to handle himself in the middle of the park with size, footwork and aggro like Whitehead. Haven't seen enough of Hola yet, but he's another contender.
I absolutely think Ricky will pick Hodgo. But I will tear my hair out when he plays 4 crash balls in the 15m zone on umpteen sets until he finally tricks the opposition who can't believe he'd throw a 75th crash ball and we score from it and Hodgo is a genius but we score 13.5 pts a game for the first 8 weeks.
Having written off Rapana last year only to see him play a blinder, Josh Hodgson- over to you!
I'm also not sold on Hodgson at lock either. Just seems we're finding a reason to keep him on the paddock to justify his salary when that happens. A player like him may have had a role at lock in the 90s and early 00s as a link man - but it's too much of a burden to put on the other 4 forwards with him in that role. We did look better with him there at times last year but IMO that's more the shortcomings of the halves, and we pay for it elsewhere in the forward pack in terms of fatigue.
I still believe Hodgson is easily our best hooker and gives us the best opportunity to be successful
The only area that Starling is better than Hodgson is as a runner out of hooker. Hodgson is not the player he was in his peak and he does have some annoying habits, but he's the better player IMO.
At the very least i'd like to see him start the year as the starting and primary hooker with the new spine that includes Fog and hopefully Savage.
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I think it's gotta be Hodgson to start the year for me. But he needs to switch his game up. I hope he's been watching tape from last season so he's aware of how stale his game has become. Starling has got many shortcomings in his game, as others have mentioned, and Hodgson is the better hooker. But if Hodgson gives us the type of service that stifles our play for the first couple rounds, then I'm happy to see Starling take the starting spot.
Yep Hodgo is the pick of the crop here. Not sure what that says about Starling. I think we may have over-rated him a little and I’m not convinced he is the future.
If we cop some injuries I wouldn't be surprised to see Frawley have a couple of games in the hooking role this year. There was mention of him training there during last year as a contingency and we haven't signed a Havili replacement. With the disrupted development of Adrian Trevilyan due to covid we could end up with a stopgap from the bench for a few rounds.