The Silver Fern

@Chris the Crusaders losing White and Inch at the same time, when they only have two 10s and no other younger guys coming through, would be a total disaster

@nostrildamus there's no really any guys that fit the bill of being younger and also being in the right place to be ready for it. Taele has a ways to go, Higgins is injured, etc.

It's just a lot of guys in their late 20s or early 30s. McLeod is on the younger side of that range but played in the NPC Final, so is being rested. The only other thing you can do is shoe-horn a career outside centre in there but I fail to see the point of that.

@hikastags yeah, he suffered a serious knee injury during their shield challenge against Southland. Haven't heard any time frames for it, like we have with Grace's knee, so I'm going to hope and pray he's good to go for Super.

@Grooter the reshuffle in the 9s for Canterbury this season looks to be a sign that they'd prefer Chapman to take that third spot at the Crusaders over Shearer. Shearer is a live wire, and has had a good start to the season, but Chapman is probably a better fit for the 3rd halfback spot.

Shearer is definitely going to latch on to a Wider Training Group somewhere, though.

@tubbyj He got injured playing club footy a couple of months ago. From memory it was an ACL. Not 100% on that but I'm not expecting to see him this season.

@ploughboy for sure, just saying I wouldn't look at him too harshly for being a little slow to ramp into form. It's to be expected. He's spent basically the entire gap between Super and NPC aggressively treating something pretty serious, from what I've been told.

@KiwiMurph He's just working his way back from a health thing that is being kept private (i.e not an injury) but it sounds like it was really kicking his ass. He probably shouldn't be in the ABs selection frame until that's well and truly behind him.

@Bones Rumour has it he's getting cleaned up for his Monkley Medal award ceremony in about 3 months.

@Crazy-Horse Sorry, you were spot on with the first part of your question so I just assumed that you knew and forgot to say yes lol

You should never feel regret for bringing up our beautiful balding savior. In fact, we should all start bringing up Bell more often.

@Crazy-Horse At the point where Moananu gave way for Bell— both were on full contracts that ended this year. There was no contractual motivation to play one over the other. Bell is just greatly preferred as a player.

@Crazy-Horse Moananu was fully contracted this year, he's just saying he wasn't offered a full contract for next year.

@Chris at least in 2023 Chiefs fans waited until after they lost the game to jump to the death threats. It's nice that they've retroactively justified the ban by threatening to use them as weapons on team officials