Gia as the permanent sub is a bad thing...?

[bulldogtragic]

I've been talking about the sub and our use of it from the beginning. Like the power plays in cricket there's no right or wrong and some countries are struggling with it. But Gia as the sub on something of a continual basis is counter productive for the following:

1. It may hold back Hrovat and Honeychurch.

2. It denies us fresh and fast legs when the game slows down.

3. Who we take off is problematic. Dahl and Hunter need to stay out there, and we tend to also bomb long under pressure so we need to take off a tall which isn't great either.

4. Coaches, even average ones like Brad Scott can and will exploit us.

On the last point, take yesterday, Scott smashed BMac on the sub. At 3/4 time Scott takes off a taller defender knowing at some point Gia will replace an under performing taller forward in Crameri, Jones or Stringer. BMac gambled not to bring Gia on and try to exploit this, while Greenwood was running and possessing the footy. Then bringing Gia on with 15 minutes was pointless.

So... If I'm coaching against us I'd do exactly what Scott did. The use of Gia is overly predictable and allows opposition coaches one less variable or surprise from our coaches box.

Am I misreading things?

[soupman]

I'm not bothered with point 1. Gia is either picked in our best 22 or not, whether he is sub or not doesn't affect either of those guys when they aren't in the 22.

Point 2 is good, but we don't have many guys who provide run on the list, and the ones we do have we need to play a full game. Of the guys who played yesterday who would provide the necessary run, they were guys like Hunter, Dahlhaus, JJ and Macrae. They should all be starting.

Point 3 is a problem of our own making. There were plenty of options to take off yesterday, and Stringer shouldn't have been at the top of the list. Half the idea with all our talls is that they are mobile and thus we can leave them on the whole match. Someone playing a shocker (like JJ), or buggered (like Jong) should come off before a mobile key forward.

And what is with leaving it until 15 minutes left? The same thing happened twice last year where halfway through the last we still hadn't made the sub. We were clearly labouring and struggling to keep running yesterday after a big trip last week. Surely this means you try and inject fresh legs as soon as possible, not even later than usual. Stupid timing of the sub, especially when on top of this Gia actually provides some finishing ability that we lacked.

I'm fine with Gia as a sub, I think it helps him have more of an influence on the game and gives us some composure and creativity later in the match. I'd start him this week against Richmond if he's in the squad, we need a composed forward who can place our forward entries as the last two weeks we haven't had a calming influence forward of centre.