I was at the trial and my thoughts have already been repeated by various others but:
Croft was good
Dearden looked super composed when he came on, instantly made a difference in terms of our fluidity.
Haas was good albeit a bit lazy in d
Flegler is our new McGuire, get the drop balls and lazy penalties out of your game dude
Coates good in attack (same as last year)
Milford was pretty fucking bad
Carrigan tried hard and was third man in when there was a stink - didnt necessarily try and inflame things further but didn't take a backward step - I like that, that's what captains should do, be the first man on the scene to help your mate out.
Fifita too also put in, would like to his metres for the game as he was a constant handful in the tackle. Also made a 30-40 yard break in the first half where he just absolutely steamrolled some poor bastard.
Oates was pretty average
Rhys Kennedy bent the line in attack but was atrocious in d, think he got done twice on the line. Lateral movement questionable at best.
Bird tried hard at fullback and tried to get involved. Wouldn't say he did anything of note but his effort levels were obvious - dude put in.
Isaako on the other hand just looked flat, didn't make any real mistakes that I can remember but didn't overly contribute either. Was like a safer, lesser version of Darius circa 2008.
Boyd at centre is not going to work long term. can see him allowing attackers to get on his outside and them 2v1'ing our winger all day due to his reluctance to get stuck in.
Macca just isn't in sync with the rest of the team, as evidenced at the end of the game with 10mins left where he put in a kick that no one was expecting - it wasn't even a bad kick, but you could tell it was a bit of an afterthought that sorta summed up everything about Macca. Tries hard, good in d, but just go to the next level in attack no matter what.
I assume the result is more a case of constant rotation - hard to get momentum when there's a different bloke next to you every 20mins.
Was also front row when Tanah Boyd nailed the reserve hooker square in the head with the ball during midgame warmups. 10/10 would watch again.