Hastings was a good leader but he was slow and defences read him pretty well at the end.Sorry to disagree but Hastings and Douhie didn't have any game breaker attributes apart from Douhie catching bombs and scoring from centre.
Douhies cut out passes and bombs are skilful but his cut out passes go to a winger who is already marked and his bombs go randomly( opposite of what Cleary did to Waqa Blake when he peppered him strategically).
Hastings was a good leader but he was slow and defences read him pretty well at the end.
Laurie has heart and has some good skill but he gets lazy in defence when he's caught out often and he never follows the forwards in the middle. How many times was there a potential offload or break and Laurie was no where to be seen? To be a top fullback there is no slacking off ever.
They aren't the worse but they need to up their game exponentially if they ant to play deep in the finals.
Yep dont think you can build a team around 1 player no matter how committed they appear to be …a team like we have is gonna need multiple points of attack and speed to have any chance of success with the roster we have . The most positive factor is we have at last got some potential in the forwards (if remain injury free) to stop us from being bullied and run over by the opposition and allow our backs to make a difference