Who knows who's coming back from injury??

This is not a knock on Hickey per se, but I'd be loathe to play two rucks right now. I reckon one of our woes is the lack of forward pressure compared to last year, when we were manic at holding the ball inside 50 or our getting repeat entries. People on here (rightly) remark on McLean's lack of defensive pressure; well, Hickey or Ladhams ain't gonna be any quicker.

It 'may' be that we can play Ladhams in the role McLean currently has, once Hickey returns to full fitness and resumes his role in the ruck. Ladhams did occasionally play that second ruck role at Port. The other argument for this arrangement is Logan is not yet a stand-your-ground pack mark inside 50, and works better roaming around; so there's a case for a big body closer to the goal square.

But I'd rather play a smaller, quicker forward line built around Logan, Heeney and Paps until we get the cavalry back after the bye. It also reinforces for me the value a good small forward like Konstanty will hopefully bring in time. Clarke is an excellent tagger, but he doesn't do the scrambling defensive work (the role Wicks had in '21) and as others have noted, his disposal is slow and a weakness.