That’s an interesting table and it shows very clearly that we are in a much better position to judge RB than we were to judge JS after 4 years. I remember there still being a lot of uncertainty about JS when he came in in the semi in 09 not because we had seen a lot of him and thought he wouldn’t make it but because we hadn’t seen enough of him.Xanthippe wrote:There seems to be a lot of dismissing of Ross Byrne going on at the moment so can I take a minute to remind everyone that he is almost exactly 10 years younger than J-Sex (9 years and 9 months) and made his debut almost exactly 10 years after him (9 years and 7 months). Both were 20 when they made their debut and in their first 4 seasons were competing with an exceptionally talented incumbent.
In his first 4 years (as understudy to Dr Phil) Sexton played in 32 league and 8 European games (2115 minutes) while Felipe played in 62 and 26 (6662 minutes)
In Byrne’s first 4 years (as understudy to Sexton) he played in 54 league and 17 European games (3894 minutes) while Sexton played in 26 and 24 (3121 minutes)
Below is a slightly more detailed look at both players’ first 4 seasons:
As people have said he dosent seem to be as big a threat with ball in hand and with the players around him and the game plan being favored by Stuart and Leo that could be a problem going forward for the province. He didn’t have a great year last year in green or blue and there was a significant drop off in performance by the team as a whole when he played both with the reserves and the seniors. We scrapped past a poor ulster team at home in Europe and had a bad few results with him at 10 towards the end of the year.
Maybe he will have a huge year this year and kick on. He will always be compared Joey who played well in Europe last year and was good better in green too.