And just on Api in a mentor role, he is one of those extraordinarily rare footballers.
He can teach certain things, but he has a natural flair and instinct for the game.
He processes in-game scenarios faster than most other players and fashioning his game accordingly as he slows down.
Im not sure you can neccessarily teach this explosive game in processing.
It is a gift hes got.
And his humility and short selling himself in interviews is always extremely impressive.
Hes slowing down but mentally i reckon hes sharper than 90% of players.
It is a gift for sure, but there are a lot of cues that a good hooker uses to feel the game: to identify who has clocked off or who has positioned themselves in a manner that can be exploited. This is true for all other positions as well.
What separates the great hookers from the good ones is their ability to take in the whole situation, when to overule a call, when to exploit a close in weakness and bring others onto the ball and how to simply deliver service and keep the markers and A defender committed in order to provide time and space.
If TDS has the game feel, and everthing indicates that he does, then Api can fast track him from good to great by passing to TDS what he understands mentally. TDS already understand how to back away from the ruck and at the same time create space, he can identify the tired defender and has the speed to make them pay.
What he needs to learn now, and it is a criticism I have of Api (and Luai), is to use their ability to control the pace of the game; to slow it when we are hurting and speed it up when the opposition is out on their feet. He also needs to develop the ability to kick a 40/20 from the back of the ruck and to own that space in and behind the ruck.
TDS still has a lot to learn, and Api is the right guy to have mentoring him at this stage. I would hope that TDS has, or is, studying how Cam Smith and Harry Grant controlled the ruck in order to build on Api's cafty ways to become even better. He has time, and if he bides it, he could be a sensational hooker in season 28/29 if he does. If he chooses the fast track he is robbing himself of the opportunity to experiment in KOE, to hone his craft and become one of the greats.
TDS still has not developed into an NRL hooker; at the moment he is a great benchie and is learning. But playing 20 off the pine when the sting is out of the defence is not the same a managing a game over 80 minutes. If he is smart, and the club is too, we will negotiate a deal with both Api and TDS that is about mentorship, succession and the club.
If TDS is worried about a few beer sheckles now - he isn't the guy we need. Bring up the next kid and develop him properly. Api isn't holding us back yet and if we manage him and TDS properly this will be very fruitful of WT in the long run.
