I was thinking about the Taupau, AFB dominance period the other day and I think there are a couple of interesting thoughts around it...
I remember they would tear the opposition apart but we would only score 6-12 points max because (a) we were coached by Barrett for a large part of it, (b) DCE was playing without a dominant 6 and (c) Tom was always injured.
I remember our attack being really poor during that period and I think if we had a fit Tom and some of the other pieces of the puzzle (Foran, speed on edges, etc.) we could have really taken advantage of a good pack in those days.
Now it seems, we finally have some strike but the pack are not up to it, week in, week out. So yeah, I really think the problem was not so much who came on when the big guns went off (of course it did drop off, but that happens to the opposition who rotate their pack as well) it was more the fact that we hadn’t converted the field position and momentum into points...suddenly the opposition look up and they’re right in the game, even though they’ve taken a battering.