Understandable why he was on the bench to potentially come on, but how often has Burrow played that well that he should be left on at dummy half all game? The performance of Burrow dictated that Falloon shouldn't come on for him. If Burrow had one of his poorer/average games and Falloon was left unused then fair enough.

No it isn't a 17 man game. It is a 13 aside game with a subs bench of 4 substitutes should you require them. They have reduced the number of interchanges thank goodness and I would favour a further reduction. The way the game has gone where you have muscle bound forwards only capable of 15 minute stints is one of the reasons for the decline in our game.

This fallacy that you have to use all your subs in a pre match planned manner no matter how the game pans out is what is barmy ! Falloon was cover for the hooker position and as Burrow was having a good game and is an 80 minute player there was no need to use him certainly not in place of a big forward.

There may be a difference in quality between Buderus and Falloon
Former Aus captain and current Blues captain looking for a new challenge vs. player looking to get career back on track...
Buderus was a brilliant defender, not just in the amount of work but the ability to read play, something I havnt seen from Falloon
If Burrow is playing well then put him on Keinhorsts side in defence and put Baldwinson on the bench

If the choice is between leaving a clearly fatigued player on when the opposition are moving the ball around chasing the game or getting a fresh set of legs on even if it's just to add some line speed and mobility in defence, I know which one I'd be taking.

Yeah, heaven forbid the monotonous bitching about the coach should suffer some sort of interruption...



The restriction on subs is obviously deliberate - and part and parcel of what forges this team into a lean, mean big game team. You know - the type of team that regularly serves up the doubters a giant slab of humble pie.

If we put Baldwinson on the bench instead of Falloon last night and Burrow or Lilley played poorly or got injured then what do we do?

Are you not too old for blinkered hero worship?



So no doubt you would find praise for McDermott if he found reason to use none of his substitutes? Bizarre. By not utilising all the players at your disposal - as has been said if only to give a brief respite to a.n.other - you are handicapping yourself against the oppositon.

You can't possibly cover all eventualities on the subs' bench.... remember at one point in history we only had TWO subs. Eeeh they were the days. McDermott obviously still hankers after them too. He could probably just about manage utilising two subs...I think

No you can't but going 4 forwards does make it trickier to cover all eventualities. With the chance to make 10 changes then 4 forwards is unnecessary especially if you have starters out there that you want to/can play big minutes.

I'd always say a bench should be 2 props, 1 second rower, 1 hooker/HB in an ideal world.

If McDermott went a 4 forward bench last night and Burrow limped off early with injury last night then you and others would be lining up to criticise him for not picking Falloon on the bench to cover that.

Not IF he had a good reason for not having Faloon on the bench.Four forwards are fine if you have enough versatility in the rest of the forwards. Ablett is a good 'substitute back' and Burrow is a (arguably) adequate 'substitute halfback'

He didn't have good reason for not having Falloon on the bench until the game unfolded and Burrow's performance said he should say on.

Who plays hooker if Burrow or one of the HB's go off injured? You not going to cover that just so another forward can do a short stint whilst resting your starting forwards?

What good is that extra forward if you don't have the hooker/HB's in place to guide them around?

Perhaps McDermott was looking to make a statement that he's not happy with Falloo s performances so far.

So to make a point to an individual, he'd deliberately select him in the 17 and not play him?

He's batsh*t crazy at times, but not that batsh*t crazy.

No conspiracy about it. It did, as it always does, make sense to have an interchange pivot on the bench. Burrow had one of his best games for quite some time so it made sense to keep him there and McDermott who probably expected to bring Falloon on just either side of HT reacted to what was actually happening on the pitch instead of sticking with a pre-planned interchange, pretty simple really.

Of course you could have brought Falloon on and had him defend where the hooker usually defends and spell whoever was doing that job. He didn't have to go at dummy half when we had the ball. Burrow could have stayed there. Plenty of other teams have managed to have two hookers on the pitch at the same time.

Have our players become so unfit that they need brief respites in each half? We had 3 big forwards to rotate with the 5 that started from the bench. To use Falloon in place of one of these against a big pack would have been a risk based on his susceptibility to leave gaps in the line. Falloon was cover at 9 in case of injury or poor form from Burrow. As neither of these senarios surfaced it was right to leave him on the bench. What would you have said if he had come on and given a try away?

Which clearly fatigued player are you talking about?

Could've done but the forwards were doing well and it would've robbed us of a proper ball carrier whilst Falloon is stood in the attacking line twiddling his thumbs not knowing what to do with himself as he's not use to not being at dummy half.

Hypothetical. He could have equally come on and scored a try to give more breathing space. Silly argument.

How many subs would have to go unused for [iyou[/i to consider it folly?

I wonder if the RL reduced the number of subs to three if McDermott would still prefer - and often choose - to go one less

Ablett and Achurch were out on their feet. As said, no problem with leaving Burrow on, but at 20-12 with six minutes left and the forwards blowing it might have been smarter to shore up the middle with a fresh defender. We weren't far away from paying for it.

We get it, you don't like the unused sub and on other occasions it's not been wise to do so....:but beating that drum when it was clearly a smart decision to leave the pivots unchanged is stubbornness. Even if Falloon came on for a forward he is still by nature a pivot and could've disrupted the other pivots.

Your arguments do appear to have been agenda driven against our coach over the years apart from when you flip flop to say you were wrong every time we have won the various cups and your rugby management ideas appear to be taken from the painting by numbers school or should I say say air fix instructions (boys version)

If a consistent view not affected by the actual fortuitous actual outcome is 'stubborn' then I plead guilty. ...
"By nature" it seems some people are McDermott acolytes and can see him do no wrong

We can't all be 'experts' I guess....just laymen who sometime care to express an opinion without really caring too much about the level of seriousness or importance. Otherwise we would be doing the job professionally and becoming the renowned best ever coach we might proclaim to be.

So even though we win it doesn't matter in terms of the unused sub, it was fortuitous.

Yet when we've lost with the unused sub it's proof that it doesn't work.

Hmmm, hypocrisy.