After last night I am interested in other views. Despite Matai wearing 6 he was playing centre and JL did the job. I thought his combination with Orford was much better, we looked more dangerous out wide and Lyon had a good game. There is still room to improve but it was no drastic as some have expressed since game 1 this season. Sure, Lyon is a great centre - but he looks better and there are not many other options. Worth persevering with this year. Certainly better than playing a hooker there, which was ridiculously suggested (in my opinion) Thoughts?
I thought he has his best game at 5/8th last night. He was actually running the ball - which is his best asset. He put in a few good kicks as well. Like you said, we don't have anyone else to put there for this year, he is probably our only reasonable option. We should get Liam Foran for 08 and put him next to Orford for a year, then bring up Kieran when Ox retires.
I would hardly use the Bulldogs as the competition benchmark. Let's see how he goes against the Broncos, where we probably won't dominate the ruck and he will have a team that will exert a fair bit of defensive pressure on both him and Orford. That'll be the test as to whether things are on track or not. I really thought the success of our attack last night was the straight hole running and the timing of those runners. It gave Orford options, and even allowed his second man play to work because the defence was in two minds rather than sweating on B Stewart and Lyon, as was the case earlier in the season. Also credit to Orford in that he took the right option most times. If we can consistently get guys like Cuthbo, G Stewart and Choc hitting holes on the fringes than this makes life easier. Even Bell ran straight last night. Lyon looked better last night because our forwards dominated and gave our halves time and space.
Snake was interviewed and said that Lyon played better in the centres, and Lyon said afterwards that he was happy to be where ever Des put him. He definitely had his best game this year and it was down to the room our forwards created.
