So many positive top 17 questions and options next year:
Carrigan front row with hethrington extra mins?
Piakura starting over capewell with his xperience off the bench or in the middle with his lateral movement not a factor?
Mariner, arthurs, cobbo, Oates? Which 2 on the wing, which one in the centres?
Maybe sailor to the 14. I know this one's a little left field but imagine him and Walsh on an edge each, with mam, cobbo and staggs as ball running options off their hips with tired defence. Insanely undefendable if it clicks. All you'd need is a quality 20 mins out of sailor, negates alot of the negative parts of his game (loss of focus, laziness, errors under fatigue). It would just hinge on Walters becoming an 80 min hooker, and given his improvement this year it is not out of the question. Wife he's injured you could just got back to a smoothy/mozer combo bcos they couldn't do 80 with sailor 18th man instead.
Do we go a bigger bench? Xavier development, has Walters been holding jensen back to grow his game, does te kura shoot up early, does baker steal the show, maybe tapau has 1 more decent season in him?
The difference between this and last few years is we have so many options. One doesn't work, we move on.
I fo think the media will go on and on and on about farnworth and flegler next year the first 10 or so rounds but in the end they will miss us more then we miss them. Farnworth won't have gaps created by Reynolds, walsh and mam bcos they hold off bcos they are such threats. His right foot step and no passing will not be a weapon if teams can focus on it, and an increased reliance on him creating something (eg Burton at bulldogs) will really burn him out. He's the main man there with hammer.
Flegler won't be taking hit ups with haas and carrigan running off of Reynolds. Those errors and penalties will come back, that I can guarantee. Good pack at Redcliffe but he won't be the sidekick there he will be the main man next to Gilbert. There pack is a year older with less emotion, and we seen them tire half way through the year, their defence was butter by the end.
Paliasia... well he did have a great year for us, but again. Starting 13? I think the pacifica game highlighted while he plays well with a great pack around him, and the titans pack is good, he will struggle if he is a main man. He's moved up about 3 or 4 rungs on the pecking order pack-wise at titans compared to us. He played well but jensen, tapau or willison could have easily had the same year as him and no one would have been shocked.