Quote Originally Posted by Noel Cleal View Post
If I was in charge, I would go for something like...

Coote

Makinson
Naiqama
Percival
Grace

Lomax
Richardson

Walmsley
Roby
Douglas
Peyroux
Paulo
Thompson

Ashworth
Taia
LMS
Lees

Start with a big pack. Bring Taia on after 15 mins for Walmsley and keep him on for the rest of the match. This should wear a lot of teams out, stopping our big men.
After 25 bring on Ashworth and Lees at this point to run at tired defenders before half time.

Our focus needs to be on getting the ball to our wingers more often. Moving Taia into the middle would help with this.

I am interested to see how Percy goes in 2019. He is not a wingers centre, which probably cost him an international spot. If he can add some better passing to his game he could become even better. If not, he could stagnate.
It'll be interesting to see what JH does with Paulo. Personally I don't think we'll see him playing second row unless we're short of numbers (from what I've seen Taia is more physical and more athletic than him, and we have other options too). I suspect he'll play as a ball-playing 13, doing a lot of work at first receiver, with Richardson and Lomax on either edge and Coote roaming. We could start games with Thompson at 13 to give us the extra prop for the opening exchanges, then when it's settling down a bit take Walmsley off, shift Thompson to prop and bring Paulo on for the rest of the game at 13.