Pack for next season...

[Cockatrice]

Never mind the pack an injury to PJ and we are exactly where? Is Olding a back up 10 or Irelands best centre I am.not sure he can be both....

[Bart S]

Never mind the pack an injury to PJ and we are exactly where? Is Olding a back up 10 or Irelands best centre I am.not sure he can be both....

PJ is certain to miss a few games at the start of the season due to the IRFU player management requirements therefore i fully expect we'll see then what the preferred alternative is. Could be Nelson, with Ruan as goal kicker.

[ruckover]

Johnny McPhillips is our saviour.

[Bart S]

We were arguably lucky that neither PJ nor Ruan shipped an injury in the closing part of the season as back up is far from adequate right now in either position. Leinster showed they have guys who can come in and do a job whereas i am not sure we have that kind of depth in certain positions. The back up won't be if the standard of pj and ruan, but someone who is adequate would be welcome.

[Bart S]

Johnny McPhillips is our saviour.

When though? Next season???

[therealspratt]

Johnny McPhillips is our saviour.

When though? Next season???

Season after next at least, he's not exactly been on fire for the u20s, possibly a bit lucky to make the squad.

[ruckover]

Ooh the sarcasm in my post has gone over many heads already

[Dave]

Never mind the pack an injury to PJ and we are exactly where? Is Olding a back up 10 or Irelands best centre I am.not sure he can be both....

Injury to Pienaar and we are a lot worse off. Olding is very far from Joe's radar. Joe is still thinking Henshaw and Payne. McFadden covering 10-23. Olding/Nelson will be back up with two nippers and Barbara a distance behind.

[LegsLikeSausages]

Ooh the sarcasm in my post has gone over many heads already

Nope, I got it. The ACTUAL saviour is Brett Herron.

[Snipe Watson]

Is it safe to assume at this stage that there are no more squad announcements to be made? obviously notwithstanding a possible, but unlikely, medical joker.

[Russ]

Never mind the pack an injury to PJ and we are exactly where? Is Olding a back up 10 or Irelands best centre I am.not sure he can be both....

Injury to Pienaar and we are a lot worse off. Olding is very far from Joe's radar. Joe is still thinking Henshaw and Payne. McFadden covering 10-23. Olding/Nelson will be back up with two nippers and Barbara a distance behind.

McFadden also covers the back row

[BuckRogers]

I couldn't give a fiddlers f**k how many tackles Diack makes or misses CI. I also don't want this to seem overly personal against you, I assure you it is not, but he's largely pointless. Squad filler against an Italian side or maybe Edinburgh/Dragons ok, anyone else? No thanks.

Tackles are judged as positive, neutral or soak. Diack is a soak tackler ie loses yards almost all the time. The only thing worse than a soak tackle is no tackle.

Diack is also possibly the most ineffective tight carrier in the Ulster pack, which is quite an achievement when you consider how poor guys like Black and Lutton are as carriers.

The only way I would see any argument for Diack to ever be included was if our maul was world class and we wanted to really go after the opposition lineout. You'd perhaps pick Hendo, Marcel, Tuohy and VDM to cover up the rest of Diacks shortcomings and let him jump into the air like a salmon from the stream.

[Amiga500]

Never mind the pack an injury to PJ and we are exactly where? Is Olding a back up 10 or Irelands best centre I am.not sure he can be both....

We could have done a lot worse than sign AJ MacGinty for a couple of years.

[He's off to Sale to make way for the Boshoff NIQ arrival.]

[therealspratt]

Never mind the pack an injury to PJ and we are exactly where? Is Olding a back up 10 or Irelands best centre I am.not sure he can be both....

We could have done a lot worse than sign AJ MacGinty for a couple of years.

[He's off to Sale to make way for the Boshoff NIQ arrival.]

We've better uses for an NIQ spot, and I suspect that the IRFU wouldn't have sanctioned it given the one NIQ per position rule that's still meant to be around.

[therealspratt]

Ian McKinley on the other hand would have been well worth a punt on, but unfortunately he's now off to Treviso.