Prince Discussion

[Alec]

Re: It's time to go...

Tbh, what I don't understand is this blind faith that Hunt is the next best thing since sliced bread....

Even if he doesn't, it won't take much to improve on what Prince has been offering, both in attack and in defence. Prince isn't suddenly going to improve on his last 3 or so terrible years at the Titans, it's pretty clear he's on his last legs. At the moment, Hunt is our only future, and we are forcing him out by playing a nuffy.

 

[Ari Gold]

It's time to go...

What's the point of Prince? Has two years left at best. We lose Norman next year so there goes one part of our future spine, the very least we could do is try to build combinations for the future.

Prince definitely won't be our future, we should at least give Hunt a real go to see if he might be.

 

[Porthoz]

Re: It's time to go...

I wonder where all this talent and promise goes during the trials and the pre-season?
That's when he had the chance to prove he had what it takes!

Showing a few moves when replacing Macca against tired forwards isn't the same thing as directing an NRL team around as its primary playmaker, no matter how much people wish it to be true.

 

[Porthoz]

Re: It's time to go...

What's the point of Prince? Has two years left at best. We lose Norman next year so there goes one part of our future spine, the very least we could do is try to build combinations for the future.

Prince definitely won't be our future, we should at least give Hunt a real go to see if he might be.

Two years is an eternity in the NRL
Anything could happen in the meanwhile, including the current halves leading us to a premiership! :winky:

 

[Big Pete]

Re: It's time to go...

However, as I said earlier, it's be counter productive right now. We've just spent 6 weeks working on the Prince-Wallace combination, why go back to square 1 on Hunt-Wallace?

Because the Prince/Wallace combination has barely grown in that time and doesn't appear like it's going to get any better.

All it's produced so far is a decent second half where it still took them over 20 minutes to put the Titans away.

IMO, Hunt is the better long term option not just in years to come but in months to come. He isn't a defensive liability and would suit Hook's conservative gameplan much better.

 

[Coxy]

Re: It's time to go...

porthoz has a massive agenda against Hunt.

 

[Bucking Beads]

It's time to go...

We've been winning off the back of our forwards and our left side attack. Our halves have not been dominant at all. They've been pretty poor IMO

 

[jarro65]

Re: It's time to go...

How is Baptiste going ?

Maybe Hook doesn't want to move Hunt until he finds the right utility to take his place ?

He does provide good spark when he comes on to replace Macca, so maybe Hook doesn't want to mess with that.

 

[Bucking Beads]

It's time to go...

Baptiste scored 2 tries on the weekend. Carved up apparently

 

[tkday]

Re: It's time to go...

That's the thing, Baptiste has been playing hooker which is he preferred position, that's only going to help him. I think there's real merit in dropping Prince and moving Hunt to half or 5/8 and Baptiste in to back up for Macca. You might find that Baptiste, with some consecutive first grade games under his belt really starts to perform and outperform Macca. We need to look to the future, way ahead, instead of the next two years. If Hunt doesn't work out after 6-8 games, then we can drop him, look for a real half and put Prince in there as an interim measure until we buy a half. Makes sense to me.

 

[Coxy]

Re: It's time to go...

It's funny, people will say Baptiste had a chance last year and failed. He got what, 1 game?

 

[jarro65]

Re: It's time to go...

It's funny, people will say Baptiste had a chance last year and failed. He got what, 1 game?

Yeah i'm not really sure, but it might have been more than the one game.

I'd like to see him come onto the bench and Hunt moved to halfback .... just to see how the dynamics of the team change.

 

[Coxy]

Re: It's time to go...

Yeah i'm not really sure, but it might have been more than the one game.

I'd like to see him come onto the bench and Hunt moved to halfback .... just to see how the dynamics of the team change.

Nope, it was the one game. Against Canberra at Suncorp. The game Hunt replaced injured Wallace, and he and Norman combined beautifully to carve the Raiders up 30-6 (of course, Porthoz and the other Hunt haters won't tell you that).

Baptiste came off the bench and I think tried too hard, made some bad errors.

 

[jarro65]

Re: It's time to go...

So he's more than overdue for another crack in the top side then ?

 

[tkday]

Re: It's time to go...

Yeah you could tell he was really trying too hard. Can't blame him because he has had limited chances and obviously wanted to play to his best so he would get picked again. I don't see the point in playing Hunt has hooker just to keep him when we have a genuine hooker in Baptiste. Hunt should be back in qcup getting experience if Griffin isn't going to play him in the halves role for Bronocs and Baptiste should be in 1st grade getting experience. I don't watch much qcup but from what I hear Baptiste is doing ok. He's quick elusive and much more creative then Macca. He does love to dummy and go himself though, which is one of my pet hates with Macca. Although considering Baptiste is much quicker than Macca, it's probably not as bad.

 

[Coxy]

Re: It's time to go...

Yeah you could tell he was really trying too hard. Can't blame him because he has had limited chances and obviously wanted to play to his best so he would get picked again.

Exactly. That's where I have some criticism of the Broncos' development path. There's no nurturing or trust. It's languish in Q Cup until you get a chance, then you have to play like an immortal or you're out...unless you're one of our pet projects in which case we'll never drop you to Q Cup and persevere forever.

What's been noteworthy is in our last 2 wins the attack has improved when Hunt has replaced Macca.

 

[Kimlo]

Re: It's time to go...

No mate, it's during the pre-season and trials that you have to make your claim for a spot in the halves. Hunt had nothing 2 years in a row, first losing to Norman, now losing to Norman AND Prince.
Yes, Prince's name has influence, but fact is that neither Hunt nor Norman have been capable than doing better than him when they had a chance to prove themselves: Pre-season and trials!

Prince & Wallace have formed a combination and are starting to show the goods and feed of eachother, but we should break that up in the off chance that Hunt will do something he has not ever shown when he had the chance to... righto, I'm sure he will save us all and cure cancer in his spare time!

The team is going ****---> It's because of the halves!
The team is going well---> The halves have nothing to do with it!

So performance in the actual REAL season which counts for real premiership points don't count? Because out of the 12 halves of football prince has played, he's probably had a good 20 minutes of one halve.

Hunt has once again not been given a fair shot, he's gotten no real gametime in the 7 jersey and in fact when he has in the past we didn't look too bad!

Norman was not moved to 1 because he wasn't performing at 6, if that was the case it would have happened last year, he was moved to 1 because we bought prince who is guaranteed a shot in the team which subsequently had the side benefit of moving Hoffman out of the 1 and pissing off Norman enough that he now wants to leave and by the looks of it Hunt has finally had enough and is looking to go elsewhere too.

I'm not saying we should break the halves up, I explicitly stated that I don't think that should be the case. What I did say was Hunt deserves a fair shot, at least equal to that of Prince who did NOT get it on form but on reputation. You can argue he got his position on form all you like but I'm firmly of the belief he got it on reputation because I have seen his form first hand these last 6 weeks and it's been downright average if not shit but he did show slight signs of improvement so if he improves big time I'm happy to see him keep the jersey but he needs to live up to his reputation for that to happen.

 

[Coxy]

Re: It's time to go...

Norman was not moved to 1 because he wasn't performing at 6, if that was the case it would have happened last year, he was moved to 1 because we bought prince who is guaranteed a shot in the team which subsequently had the side benefit of moving Hoffman out of the 1 and ****ing off Norman enough that he now wants to leave and by the looks of it Hunt has finally had enough and is looking to go elsewhere too.

I disagree. And it DID happen last year, albeit only for 2 or 3 games, and mainly because Hoffman was dropped.

There's no doubt Prince outplayed Norman and Hunt in the trials, and that's why he got the nod for round 1. Plus Hook, like the rest of us, realised that Norman isn't a five-eighth and probably never will be, but he's a pretty good fullback.