2 wins from 22 6nation matches he started for scotland

Jumped before he was pushed judging by Andy Robinson's graceless comments at the end of this piece...

www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/feb/07/sco...-international-rugby

Parks has retired from international rugby with immediate effect according to the Twittermachine.

Ooooooh intrigue.

I do think he's too old to be paying big bucks for though and I'd be in favour of developing Jarvis at 10 and breaking the bank to get in a "French" scrumhalf who can placekick and play 9/10. Freddy Michalak, anyone?

Parks has just announced his international retirement.

rossie wrote: Noc could be used at 12 and jarvis at 15 to rest duffy. We wud have to bite the bullet and pay off 1 of the scrum halves tho. I dont think either of them are worth holding onto as they dont give the leadership or direction necessary. I liked the small bit i saw of moore tho.

A decent goal kicker has to be the priority, i dont care what number is on his back as long as he can convert the goals.

Jarvis at 15 -yep worth a shot.
Noc at 12-really can't see anything good from this.

Moore-Saw a bit of him in pre-season game with Exeter and yes he does seem to provide a bit of zip.I think he also came on against Toulouse for a cameo and didn't disapoint.9/10 times though ,theres a good reason for a player not being picked.In many cases ,there can be some strange decisions with the 1/10.

Goalkicker being a priority -Yep 100% .With the contracts though i think we pretty much have the same lads for another season.It's a tough one using someone else other than the outhalf.Confidence of the outhalf would be shot and using e.g. a winger to kick brings other problems with it .It can work in somecases e.g.Madigan/Nacawea but thats probably the exception.

Noc could be used at 12 and jarvis at 15 to rest duffy. We wud have to bite the bullet and pay off 1 of the scrum halves tho. I dont think either of them are worth holding onto as they dont give the leadership or direction necessary. I liked the small bit i saw of moore tho.

A decent goal kicker has to be the priority, i dont care what number is on his back as long as he can convert the goals.

This is an issue we are going to have to face. Honestly I don't see us improving next season without a additions in the front row and at 1st choice at 9 and 10 but Murphy and O'Donohue are both in the first year of two year deals, Moore probably one but thats a development deal I think so even if he was let go its not going to free up huge funds.

At out half, O'Connor and Nikora are on 2 years deals also, Jarvis as with Moore above and I think he should stay anyway.

Talk of Stringer and Parks (who would improve us) but 8 players at half back is too many and will just result in issues in other areas for a team like us unless there is a change in the policy of the IRFU towards our squad size or unless we can get someone to take a couple of our present players off our hands, but don't see any takers in Ireland anyway.

I think the poor recruitment and two year deals handed out to lots of average players last year is going to haunt us again next season.

ConnachtCows wrote: I cant believe what I'm reading in this thread....

People defending McHugh. :sick: :sick: :sick:
I'd rather have Brett Wilkinson kicking for us than McHugh

You can sasy what you like but McHugh knew how to kick a ball and from distance into a gale. Other elements of his game may not have been international class though. And he was Ginger.... :woohoo:

......legger... :whistle:

I cant believe what I'm reading in this thread....

People defending McHugh. :sick: :sick: :sick:
I'd rather have Brett Wilkinson kicking for us than McHugh

Sheepsean wrote: If Parks came over and done nothing but kick an average of 3-4 pens/cons per game than he would be worth that alone.

Not sure a great kicker would make a huge difference statistically speaking, though it might have won us 3 or 4 close matches that would have completely turned our season around.

We have scored 139 points from kicks.
Best kicker (NOC) has a 65% record according to management, Nikora and Jarvis way worse but fewer attempts.
So let's say we've averaged a 60% success rate so far this season (the real figure is probably slightly lower).
Every 10% improvement is a little more than extra point a game....

% scored points scored difference per game
60% 139 0
65% 151 0.6
70% 162 1.2
75% 174 1.8
80% 185 2.4


Allowing for my estimate of our current success rate being generous, even a world class 80% kicker gets us at best about one extra score (3 points) per game.

There are still very few of the lost games we'd have turned around.

The counter-argument to this is of course that the games that would have turned out differently could have changed our season utterly - Treviso or Leinster at home would have killed off the losing run earlier; before that Ospreys and/or Edinburgh away could have left us in the Top 4 of the Rabo after the first 6 games.

Stand corrected about McHugh and Warwick ,a good and an excellent player.In particular my comment was more along the lines of Dunne/Donnelly and a few others.

You make some good points sea point .My own point was made as a general one.But still think Parks would be a great option and some people are a bit uppity about him,and indeed we would be lucky to get him.(For next year which unfortuatley isn't a possibility with our current contracted O/H's)

In fairness ,Eric has been consisitent within reason .O'Connor has had enough of a run to prove himself and has enough games behind him without having to rely on a significant amount to get himself up to speed.He was even consisitent to a fault when everyone was screaming for Jarvis to be given a run.If Parks came over and done nothing but kick an average of 3-4 pens/cons per game than he would be worth that alone.

Sheepsean wrote: Jesus Folks aren't we all very grand.Since Eric ,the best outhalf we've had was Keatley and can't think of another decent outhalf that we've had since Eric.We should be so lucky to get the likes of Parks.

No we're not very grand at all really, just know what we can see in front of us.

With respect ot being lucky to get Parks. That's nonesense, if it was four or five years ago then possibly.

He's clearly on the slide physicaly and his lack of variety is highlighted further by this, at 33 (34 in May) he'll be looking for a final contract which means he'll be looking for a big a payout as possible.

Connacht cannot afford to gamble on what his attitude/fitness will be. The sort of money we'd be spending would be far better spent on a non-international at least 6-7 years younger...

If you think the game plan that Parks clings to at Blues/Scotland will move us forward next season you're deluded I'm afraid.

If Eric want's our 10's to kick their goals and be more composed in their management of the game (which are the major bones of contention with out current 10's), then he has to stick with one and give them the backing to trust themselves.

Sexton got better because Leinster stuck with him, same with Keatley with us his first season was ropey but the second was immesurably better...

Both McHugh and Warwick were fine players and extremely versatile to boot, if Warwick hadn't oplayed Aussie 7's he'd have had a couple of Ireland caps for sure...

mary hinge wrote: McHugh was a great servant of Connacht too.
Parks mightn't have had a great day at the office at Murrayfield on Saturday, but he nailed his goals and IMHO is just the man we need to direct operations at 10 next year.

we're hardly going to keep four OH's next season though, we've a small enough squad as it is

McHugh was a great servant of Connacht too.
Parks mightn't have had a great day at the office at Murrayfield on Saturday, but he nailed his goals and IMHO is just the man we need to direct operations at 10 next year.

Warwick?

Jesus Folks aren't we all very grand.Since Eric ,the best outhalf we've had was Keatley and can't think of another decent outhalf that we've had since Eric.We should be so lucky to get the likes of Parks.