The common sense option would have been to put Karmichael Hunt back in at fullback when he returned, especially when it became apparent of Hodges' flaws at the back. He persisted and chose the right times to put him at the back.
Throw in his decision to put Berro to hooker, freakin' Stagg to centres, Perry > the much more promising Seymour & promote Thaiday and he deserves a ton of credit for that 06 turn around.
Don't even know why you bothered responding to that. Hit too close to home?
why put Hunt back to fullback when Hodges was playing well? should Souths have moved Inglis back to centre to accomodate their injured fullback when he came back, just because he came back?
"He persisted and chose the right times to put him at the back."
correct me if im wrong, but didnt hodges play every game from when Hunt got injured til the end of the season at fullback apart from a single half of 1 match (the semi against the bulldogs)? if you were the coach, and your team had been playing excellent with your new fullback playing the house down for 8 weeks, then you switch fullbacks for 40 minutes and get destroyed in that 40 minutes, wouldnt you think to change the one thing that had changed from when you were playing well back to how it was? i know i would. in reality, it was a dumb move putting hunt back there when hodges had been playing the way he had.
Stagg to centre wasnt a good decision, he was terrible there. perry over seymour was because Bennett didnt like seymour and he loved perry, not some masterstroke on his behalf. like players like kelly or minto, it didnt matter how poorly perry played week in week out, he wasnt getting dropped because bennett liked him. much like bennett didnt like taylor and would just give him a game or 2 every few months, thats how he treated seymour.
i responded because its in the topic.....why cant i respond? if you dont want people to respond, why did you write it? "hit too close to home"? what do you mean? we both support the same team, and it was clear as day to a non-biased person that it wasnt a masterstroke on bennetts behalf - like i said, it was either Hodges or a ~15 game rookie in Boyd. a masterstroke wouldve been moving thaiday to fullback and him playing the house down as a fullback. putting a great player (on his few and far between days) into his preferred position because you have noone else to put in there anyway is not a masterstroke.
