I tend to agree with you.
I’ve been thinking about Millar and where the problems seem to lie. There’s a lot of truth in what people are saying about a poor half from the nine impacting the ten. But equally, if you’re a good ten, you need to turn up in the pressure moments, and we’ve really yet to see that from Millar at Super Rugby level. Yes, poor ball impacts you, but a good ten has to get past that and grab his opportunities, and there’s nothing I’m seeing that shows he’s better than Pasetoa. Who came into the game, made good runs, and controlled the flow of the game well.
The scoreline says it best. We bled close to thirty points while Millar was on the field. That wasn’t all on him, but we only bled seven while Pasetoa was on, and he looked like the better player. We’ll see more next week, but everyone keeps excusing Millar, and frankly, I’m a bit over it. He just isn’t kicking on, and if he can’t turn up in a pre-season game, then he’s probably not going to win us a quarter or semi-final (or even get us to one).
Knewstubb sounds like he’s training the house down, brings a bit of experience, and outperformed Millar in the NPC final. I’d be eyeing up a Pasetoa–Knewstubb combo going forward, especially if Pasetoa is looking to commit to the deep south for a while. If the reports of Millar looking overseas are true, we might as well put our eggs in the basket of a couple of guys who will stick around.
