Leuluai played as a 9 in the NZ team. Are you suggesting that makes him a better Scrum Half?

I'd take Dobson over him every day of the week, and twice on a Sunday. Still, I'm pleased he's not being considered as it keeps him fresh for Leeds v Rovers on Sunday 12th June.

Are you easty in disguise



Every 'fan' is entitled to their opinion, just because someone feels the need to regularly post negative views makes him/her no less a 'fan' than those who post regular positive views.

Get off your high horse.

Indeed, I never said he wasn't. He's contradicted my view of him by actually backing his views up so I withdraw my statement and qualify it by saying every time I've tried to debate with him he doesn't respond. It's clearly just me he doesn't wish to engage with, can't blame him for that.

Cool.
I wonder if Hutchie knows that he is a HKR fan

Dobson only won his place because of his goal kicking.

Now you're just been silly

Says much about much..., Rovers fans will always take Rovers players over anyone else, playing for Rovers automatically makes you a fantastic top class player....just look at our recent domination of RL for proof....

..yet its Leuluai and not Dobson who will be able to look at his medals and view his great finals and test matches at the end of his career..? t

JM seems to have a similar mind-set with certain players..probably why we destined to flounder around winning nothing for another 26 years...

And look at the bigger picture...the Leeds v Rovers game is a non-event already...Rovers probably battling to try and get that coveted 8th spot and first round elimination from the play-offs (but far from certain..) , does it really matter if our players get selected for the Exiles..it is at least a personal honour for the players picked...

Do you think? Buderus is captin, cant see many of our overseas players getting in and on current form not many in the england team

Not all PMH, happy to shoot the breeze anytime you like, time allowing.., just to qualify , i am just eager for Rovers to regain former glories, i feel that we had a major chance to kick on three years ago but have blown it big time due in some parts to the kind of favouritism shown on these boards...it should have been clear that some players were not and never will be capable of taking that extra step to actually winning things and the squad altered accordingly.... , instead we fell into the Hull FC trap of thinking we were almost there (the chairman once opined , having fallen under the mass hypnotism of JM, that we were "a couple of players away " from been a cup winning team) and awarding deals to anyone who once had a decent game....we have missed the boat in my opinion and our reliance on overseas players is going to hurt us...

My disappointment in all this manifests itself in what you and your associates term "negativity"....i call it realism and calling it as i see it....

Not everything in and around HKR is negative.
You only pick up the negative stuff.
Now you tell me how does that look?

Fair enough - but do you not think that that disappointment reflects a possibly unrealistic level of expectation? The slope gets steeper the nearer you get to the peak. We may well be entering a new cycle, but to have built from aiming no higher than survival to finishing 7th, 4th (or 6th) and 7th (or 6th) is pretty good IMO. We're a more attractive option, I imagine, for players than we when the foundations of this squad were laid, ahead of the 2008 season.
Why is our past and current reliance on [uoverseas[/u players going to hurt us in the future? I don't see any logical reason it should do, relative to if we'd signed similar British players in their places - or do you mean an over-reliance on senior players, limiting opportunities for youngsters? While I'd still disgree, the latter is at least a logical point.

Thanks for the stereotyping, I feel like I have been placed on a pedestal! For the benefit of attempting to educate your good self I will explain. Michael Dobson is perhaps the only player in the current Rovers squad who I think would be capable of holding down a spot in the Wigan team, maybe a fully fit Clint Newton may have a shot, but the rest ain't good enough.

Please don't use the medal count theory as a measure of comparison for player abilities, it's demeaning. Leuluai may have won a GF medal last year, so he should, he's surrounded by significantly better players than Dobson. That doesn't automatically make Wigan's entire 1-17 better than anyone else without a medal. Mutley used to get medals all the time from Dick Dastardly, but there were (and are) better dogs around (both real and cartoon versions).

The Leeds v Rovers game may be a non-event to you, I suspect 15-16,000 paying spectators may have a different opinion. Perhaps we should cancel the rest of the season for anyone currently not in the top 4?

What part of the team id like to see play didnt you understand dipstick.
I included Vella because its proberbly his last season and it would be nice to see him selected after spending 5 years here.
And i would lose you inside 2 seconds if it came down to rugby knowledge any day of the week.

Fair enough, I just find it a little difficult that you can't find [iany[/i achievements from the last five or so years.

After the mass clear out at the end of 2007 the team took an awful long time to find it's feet, we turned over about sixteen or so players. There's no way we could do that every season. We also had to pay more than most other clubs (probably) to attract players to us in the first place, players are going to come to us and stay with us for less money as they are reported to do at Leeds.

Maybe we have missed the boat, I'd prefer to see it as gradual development. With a fair wind and a decent draw this team could challenge for the Challenge Cup.

I suppose the next couple of seasons will give us the answers, as the quota is reduced either our youngsters come through and Hudgell and Morgan's plan will either bare fruition or as you suspect, they will have failed.

Baffled by the way this thread has gone...

Suppose back on topic of the Exiles squad and the benefits of Luluia and Dobson, Luluai isn;t a 7, he's a 9 who plays a bit of 7. IIRC in a fully fit squad he plays 9 for wigan and also played 9 for NZ.

Not sure if I'm reading the comments correctly but, Larry are you saying you don;t think Michael Dobson is good enough for us,? I could understand where your coming from witha number of our other players but this arguement I'm afraid I just don;t get.

If I understand you correctly you're saying we don;t have one player who is good enough, can I ask who you think is???

but, but, but dream team scrum half

For me, Larry B is right about Dobson on the kicking aspect. A large proportion of our play has revolved around his kicking game.

Leuluai // Dobson - each to their own.

My view - we couldn't have realistically got any further than we have. We may not have won anything or even win anything soon, but let's face it, to go up against every challenge that was before us and come out the other side is one hell of an achievement for the club. We had one realistic shot at promotion, odds on to go down, 1 season to dispel the myth of two clubs in one city, improve facilities (from pitch/turnstiles/stands/lights*), win a franchise, continue improvement team/youth/ground/attendances - all achieved and credit to everyone involved. We’ve now built a foundation to go forwards, it could be stronger but I can’t see how we could’ve done a lot more in truth.

Back on topic

I hope 'The Exiles' win

*line set …. =#FFFFFFDrooler/Imp/Dave/ ….?

Think you misread me a bit BR, i was replying to somebody saying they were baffled Dobson was not in the Exiles squad.., Dobson is a good player in his own right no question, but he is not as good as Leuluai.., there is a reason Dobson cannot get a gig in the NRL and was not retained by Wigan and why Leuluai had played more NRL 1st grade at 19 then Dobson has in his career...and is a seasoned NZ world cup and tri nation winner and scrum half with the English champions who can also play hooker to a very, very high standard..(Mcllorum is the Wigan nine this year, Riddell last..Leuluai is first choice 7 , Tomkins 1 etc...)..

He is of course good enough to play in our first team but the question of whether he is right for us and whether we could have done better is very interesting and another thread on its own...even within our own heirarchy it is known that Dobson can be a liability in defence and sometimes goes "missing" in games of importance...on the whole the guy has a first class kicking game but is middling in other areas...Leuluai has a far superior game in every area aside kicking...

Rovers have several very good players and many i do take pleasure in watching but we also have some ordinary members of the squad and some who are well past their prime..and are not proving any sort of value for money imo..but apparently it is heresy to think this....we really should be in better shape for a club operating at the spend we do is my opinion...

being an Hull KR fan first, second and third I am staying with my years old belief that clubs comes first and I don't want ANY of our players picked for ANY representitive side. You can imagine the nightmare scenario of Newton, Galea, Vella and mason all picking up injuries and us going on another 'slide' (assuming we arrest the one we are in at the moment)

I'm not sure having those players missing would adversely affect Rovers that much (if at all) and in many respects their replacements may even improve the team and in the longer term could well improve the clubs finances.

I share that view but then again I dont live within breathing distance of Craven Park.

I think you will find that squad numbers mean nothing these days. Mcillorum (sp), may have the 9 shirt but if Finch and Deacon are fit those two will go in at 6 and 7. TL will go in at 9 and will be spelled.

TL doesn't have a great kicking game, as a 7 that is a massive role to take and it will show in the performance if England can trap them in their own quarter. With Dobson it would be highly likely a 40/20 or at least some kind of kick turn around would be possible.

I also have to disagree on the Blake Green comment. He has come in to a side that is struggling for confidence, he started the season brilliantly scoring a try in each of his first 4 games, one of which he ran 80mtrs out pacing some of the fastest players in the SL. His passing is IMO better than most in the game, I have not witnessed a more crisp pass than his especially when we go from one side of the pitch to the other. But as with any team if you don't have a good 7 your 6 might as well just not even bother.

Think we'll have to disagree on the Dobson / Luluai thing but generally I agree with a lot of what you say. I think where we are lacking today is not with our 'star' players, Dobson, Newton etc (although some of our high earners aren't cutting it) but our 'other' players. I personally think we have players that can compete at the highest level but the 2nd string so to speak isn't the quality of the top sides and this lets us down.

I think we also lack severly in pace, both in terms of outright ability to run fast but also to pass fast. I do think green is an improvement on the latter point but our wingers seem like snails in comparrison to som top teams.

In some ways I agree with what GG is saying that missing a few players may in the long run be beneficial, if this slump has done one thing it is allow Scott Taylor to show he can cut it, if the team around him was performing he would be looking very good indeed.

Dobson, Green and Galea will speed our passing up but what we are missing dreadfully is an exceptional hooker. If our ruck speed was to be faster and the hooking role being done by someone like Luluai I have no doubt we would improve dramatically.

As you say the lack of general pace in the side is worrying, people like Vella say they've never played with a faster winger than Fox so why when he crosses that white line does he seem to be caught by plenty of 'slower' players?

Also the speed of thought is not there, watching last weeks interview with Tommy Martyn was interesting because even though the game has evolved since the '90s we are still not using the numbers game to our advantage. Too many times we go where the defenders are in greater numbers and we do not draw players in. Most teams now aim for the sticks with their forwards and that sets up a play on either side of the ruck, but while in at the sticks defenders are able to go on equal numbers either side so if we aimed for say 15 in from touch they would have to man up on the short side leaving the open side short for us to throw a couple of long passes or even like against Hull in the playoffs a kick over to the winger who will be in acres of space.

Hudds play like this very successfully and in our game with them the other week they just pulled us around the park and opened our flanks ups. We never seem to get in theses positions.