There was one game Hodko came on at hooker, just changed our go forward momentum. Then he put on a great individual try and scored. Nek minute, for all his hard work, he's been pulled from the field and back warming the bench.
Hodko was alright in 2018.
May be there was more too it, but not sure I seen a coach who, read the on field momentum or backed his player at all.
100%. I could never understand Barrett's coaching on that one.
After Croker and all the drama with Hastings, we signed Hodkinson as an experienced partner for DCE in the halves that we so desperately needed. And it started out OK.....until Api got injured. Then Fainu was brought in and Barrett proceeded to play Hodkinson from the bench as a back up hooker, play Walker in the halves and use Tom as an extra play maker which took away from his strongest asset from fullback which is his running game.
We basically weakened 2 positions (fullback, centre) to fill in one (5/8). 3 positions if you consider that Walker at pivot meant Suli in the centres and having to play Parker on the wing.
What our backline ended up looking like was: Tom, Jorge, Suli, Kelly, Parker, Walker, DCE.
What it should have been was: Tom, Jorge, Walker, Kelly, Suli, Hodko, DCE.
Coaching 101, and Barrett got a D-
As for the original topic of the thread.....
1 - Siro. Unfortunately injuries have meant we have really got little value out of him. Good player, but we need him playing rather than spectating.
2 - Walker. Had a down year mostly due to his PM's XIII injury which kept him out for the first couple of months. Then the eye socket injury kept him out for longer. Then Barrett's woeful decision making further hampered him by playing him at 5/8. He did better there than in 2016, but still an out of position centre. If Des is to be our coach, he'll need a big year in the centres.
3 - Jorge. Right now to be a successful winger in the NRL you have to be any combination of tall, fast and athletic. Jorge isn't any of those, and to make it worse he is a liability under a high ball which limits how we can use him in attack and makes him a target in defence. It seems his only asset is his hit ups in early tackles. He'll need a big year to justify his place in the side.
But quite frankly, the whole squad is going to need to step up. Barrett may have been a crap coach and that has been largely responsible for him no longer having the job (handing in his resignation not withstanding), but the players were the ones out there not executing. Do that again regardless who's the coach and we'll be lucky to finish without the spoon.