swift4prez wrote: he's our only BIG back. it takes more than one to stop him.

gavin henson is on the market again it seems

May have to get the boat over for interview though... :whistle:

With regards to Henry I think his work is underated while thay of the young lads is a little overrated (at this stage), Griffin and McSharry and Tonnetti have shown potential but none has a lot of experience and they are works in progress. They can learn a lot from Henry and another season will see them gel a lot more and see their interplay improve I believe.

Just don't believe that we paid top dollar for Henry though, especially with the volume of players we needed to get in...

Putting the wage argument to one side for a second, surely just on a squad continuity basis we would be shooting ourselves in the foot slightly in shipping him out. I really like the 4 options we have at the moment, there is a really nice blend to choose from when all are fit. IMHO at this stage Henry and Kyle would be my first choice 12 and 13 combination.

swift4prez wrote: he's our only BIG back. it takes more than one to stop him.

gavin henson is on the market again it seems

Ya it's always nice to have a different option who can truck it up when there's nothing on

swift4prez wrote: he's our only BIG back. it takes more than one to stop him.

gavin henson is on the market again it seems

May have to get the boat over for interview though... :whistle:

he's our only BIG back. it takes more than one to stop him.

gavin henson is on the market again it seems

There aren't any Irish centres on the market that spring to mind who could challenge for the 12 spot, who are available. Whitten was the obvious one but he's off the Exeter.

I liked what Henry could bring, ability to offload in the tackle and strong in contact, the South Sea trademark and rugby league influence. Ideally I'd like to replace like with like, and the fact that McSharry is a work in progress and Griffin has injury trouble means we really need to replace Henry. However, the fact that we probably have spent most of our budget and McSharry's and Griffin's contracts are being upgraded to full contracts probably leaves us short.

If I had my way I'd go after Naqelevuki from Exeter. Big powerhouse who has pace, a step, hands and ferocious in contact

I guess the point is that Henry is probably second choice 12 and third choice 13, and if he's the highest paid centre, then that's just not sensible.

Having said that I'll be very sorry to see him leave. He got us out of a Benson Stanley sized hole and signed for us when loads wouldn't. But it's a cash based decision, and hard to argue with.

We went into this season with 4 centres Mathews, griffin, Mcsharry and fa'afili. We needed Tonnetti when Mathews had to retire, inthink it's fair to assume we will have 4 for next season.

So its henry or who?

Henry has done pretty well last few games, im not entirely convinced of his defense yet but going forward he's plenty of power and strength and his ability to off Load could be very useful.

Would have been interesting to see him in his second season..

I suppose everything is relative, he's not on BJ Botha, Afoa, Nacewa kind of money or anywhere near it but he is one of the heavy hitters on the wage bill.

If this is true it would be a huge pity, Henry is badly needed McSharry is no where near ready yet and he could learn a he'll of a lot from Henry. But as we all know recruitment or even holding onto to good work man like players is not our strong point. As for being on good money, I doubt that very much we don't do big money.

Good point sea_point, I just wish he would look and be aware of his support players before the off load, because of his rugby league background he does,t seem to be aware of where his support players are. The lack of rucks and mauls in League means there is always a supporting player nine times out of ten on either shoulder, but as you say at least one support runner should be in a position to recieve an off load. But then again as the ball carrier you need to see and know where that player is.

All that said he had a really good game last night.

Dunno what any of the players are on to be honest, but you can be pretty that no one has come in on Big money by any stretch of the imagination. We spent a lot of money last season in a lot of areas but I don't think recruitment was the primary one.

Saw rhe image below of Henry in action against the Dragons and think it's a good example of what he's about, four defenders drawn to him tackles coming in and still powering forward with ball in hand.

www.sportsfile.com/winshare/w180/Library/SF833/608357.jpg

The question for me is more about our ability to suppport the offload (a question that sticks out across Irish Rugby too), we don't appear capable of coaching lads to suppport the carrier and keep the ball alive. A skill that is a basic tenant of SH rugby....

i yhink jarvis could see a bit of action at centre if this happens alrite

Yes but Fa'aili didn't come cheap either. People are under the impression that he's here playing for peanuts. He was on a very lucrative 1 year deal from what I heard and imo hasn't done enough. I know others disagree but I think its the right decision. We definitely need reinforcements at centre though unless they might try and re-route Jarvis to centre or McCrea.

Will be sad if true, but White, Parks & Faloon will not have come cheap.

I don't think we can survive with only 3 centres, though. Grico and McSharry have spent a lot of time injured and while Henry has been (probably) our 4th choice centre he has played in a lot of games.

If we're not planning a new centre signing then I guess this means we're expecting Leader and/or Henshaw to step up from the U20s like Grico and TOH have in the past two years.