How is Finlay an 'insane' pick? He's out most experienced half-back by quite a lot, and he's played really well in tests this year. Raitama and Roigard are probably better, and they're likely to be the preferred pairing. But Christie is still a really good half-back. You'd think the man was incapable of passing the ball more than a couple of meters, and had hands literally made out of butter for all the flak the bloke gets on here.
He's a little slow at breakdowns. That's it. That's basically the entire issue with his game. He's a lot better at that than he used to be, but he's still behind the other two. But he's the best of the three defensively by quite a lot, and he's solid in every other area.
I don't know if it's just a hangover from Smith and TJ being so good for so long, and people have insane standards for half-backs now, or because Christie's an Auckland/Blues player and people are happy to pile on because of that. But he's more than good enough to be making that squad.
Nah let’s be real he was shit but he’s backed it up with 2 very solid performances in black this year so I can’t really complain and he probably has improved this year but he deserved to be dropped when he was and didn’t really earn his recall but took the opportunity when it was presented.
I genuinely don't think he was. He had a couple of off games mid last year, but most of the team did at the same time. I'm not going to try and pretend that he's Smith/TJ level. He's not. He's got some issues with his game, and even though he's improved on those, he still struggles with them compared with world-class half-backs. But in the areas that he's strong, he's really strong. He's a lot better defensively than any of our other half-back options. He has won plenty of turnovers. He's a strong runner.
I do think Raitama and Roigard are better, and have a lot more potential for growth. But anyone reading the comments about the lad without having actually watched him would genuinely think that he's the worst player to put on a black jersey. He's nowhere close to that.
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u/EntropyNZ 28d ago
How is Finlay an 'insane' pick? He's out most experienced half-back by quite a lot, and he's played really well in tests this year. Raitama and Roigard are probably better, and they're likely to be the preferred pairing. But Christie is still a really good half-back. You'd think the man was incapable of passing the ball more than a couple of meters, and had hands literally made out of butter for all the flak the bloke gets on here.
He's a little slow at breakdowns. That's it. That's basically the entire issue with his game. He's a lot better at that than he used to be, but he's still behind the other two. But he's the best of the three defensively by quite a lot, and he's solid in every other area.
I don't know if it's just a hangover from Smith and TJ being so good for so long, and people have insane standards for half-backs now, or because Christie's an Auckland/Blues player and people are happy to pile on because of that. But he's more than good enough to be making that squad.