surmo13 wrote:
just looked through those winning squads, stars sprinkled in to be sure but i wouldn't call any of them full strength, not saying the veterans don't want to win, but a pre-season tournament has always been primarily an outlet to get out there and shake off some rust and not go too hard to avoid injuries, it's always been more geared towards those young kids going 110% to make a name for themselves.
decided to sleuth this out for shits and giggles cuz i'm bored af, compared the nines squads to the Round 1 teams and counted how many of them played the nines:
Cowboys 2014 – 12/17
Rabbitohs 2015 – 11/17
Eels 2016 – 7/17
Roosters 2017 - 8/17
seems the right balance is around about half the team being starters