How many 1st grade games will Kane Evans play in 2013?

[Darkone]

Evans was involved in the contact sessions during Grand Final week and from what I saw was holding his own.

He'll play quite a bit of firsts next year.

I will back your call Vasco

Robbo has involved him heavily in the firsts training & pre game activity of late

this is obviously a sign that the coach is serious Evans be acclimatised to the top grade culture

there were approaches & interest expressed from other clubs early this year & I believe Robbo has made his intentions clear with him

'the undertaker" will be given opportunities to play 2014, how he grabs the chance & holds it will be up to him

[Darkone]

Indeed, at 34 he can still run hard and hit hard. Especially when he's played in a lesser competition for most of his career.

Moa is a late bloomer & has not been exposed to continual extreme physicality early in his career

In fact after all these years apart from the 10mins for the Sharks 2013 is prolly his first full year in the top grade

As we know with props this is a good sign of longevity in the game

[Sydney_Roosters_4_Life]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BXGP4tkCEAIoR1j.jpg:large

More of this for next year please!

[Thirteen]

Evans is not 1st grade standard yet, he'd get snapped in half if he played 1st grade

His chest is huge.

[Chookies74]

His chest is huge.

I'm not concerned about his upper body strength, he certainly is a big unit, it's his height, combined with a 'slimmer' lower half that concerns me, esp with the moden day 3 man tackle.

[Rooster_6]

I'm not concerned about his upper body strength, he certainly is a big unit, it's his height, combined with a 'slimmer' lower half that concerns me, esp with the moden day 3 man tackle.

Go back and watch Aaron Woods and James Tamou's first few seasons. When the cannon ball was still prevalent.

If you think a 200cm, 115kg unit is going to get 'snapped in half' then I've heard it all.

[Tommy Smith]

Anyone willing to update their prediction for games played by Kane in 2014 given what we've seen so far in the RLWC?

To me, LOD looks gone. And Casty hasn't been impressive. I see Napa and Evans pushing very hard for regular places in the 17.

So given injuries and suspensions I reckon Evans will play 10-15 games in 2014.

[Guest]

Anyone willing to update their prediction for games played by Kane in 2014 given what we've seen so far in the RLWC?

To me, LOD looks gone. And Casty hasn't been impressive. I see Napa and Evans pushing very hard for regular places in the 17.

So given injuries and suspensions I reckon Evans will play 10-15 games in 2014.

Your guess is the most valuable of all..

[roosterproud]

Anyone willing to update their prediction for games played by Kane in 2014 given what we've seen so far in the RLWC?

To me, LOD looks gone. And Casty hasn't been impressive. I see Napa and Evans pushing very hard for regular places in the 17.

So given injuries and suspensions I reckon Evans will play 10-15 games in 2014.

its going to be a very young forwards squod next year. boyd, Guerra, napa, evans, sbw, jwh, moa, lod(the only exception) fpn,liu. and even maubs to the mix

[Yak]

Kane has been very disappointing so far in this tournament compared to what I was expecting. I really hope this poor form is more a result of the ankle injury he suffered mid season that kept him on the sidelines for an extended period, meaning he lost a lot of match fitness. I do recall Kane not having much of an impact to start the 2013 season due to an off season hamstring injury but then about 8 weeks in he started to really dominate the NSW Cup competition. Hopefully this is just history repeating and the lay off is the cause of his poor form. Looks very lazy and slow in defence, seems to really have to put in for every tackle. Compare this with a guy like Liu who seems to be an effective tackler without breaking a sweat. He also doesn't look keen to cart the ball up. This is the polar opposite to how he looked prior to his ankle injury. On the other hand Dylan Napa looks to have come on massively in this tournament. His workrate is sensational and he is an onfield leader already. I said it when i saw him debut in NYC and I'll say it again. There is a hell of a lot of JWH in this kid. Full of passion, hits like a truck and leads his forwards while he's on. If he can work on his running like JWH did for 2012 season then he could be anything the big Ranga!!

Will be interesting to see if Robbo uses Evans in the Nines tournament in Feb to further his match fitness. He is only playing about 20-25 mins a game for Fiji after a big layoff so he won't be overworked. And he's certainly a player that would suit this format.

[Tommy Smith]

I hope Kane doesn't turn out to be another Shillo!!

As things stand I think the prop pecking order after the big Kiwi legends is

1. Napa
2. Liu
3. Casty
4. Evans

But in terms of talent it'd probably be

1. Evans/Napa
3. Liu
4. Casty

A real shame. Come on Kane, kick into gear young man!

[stephenj]

im looking forward to seeing him in fg in the trials?

[rwbfl]

im looking forward to seeing him in fg in the trials?

I wonder what the go is with the trials. The Auckland nines are in mid-february, then I think the WCC is a week later on February 22, which is less then a month before the comp starts I assume. So I feel we will probably only have 1 or 2 trials, if that, apart from these matches.

I guess it depends how serious the Roosters take the WCC, whether they play their full side to win, or just use it as another trial match. I hope and strongly feel it will be the former - to play the best side possible to win the match

[Tommy Smith]

I'll mud wrestle George Rose in a bikini if Robbo doesn't play our full strength team in the WCC.

We'll be taking it VERY seriously, as any team should.

[Andrew Walker]

Seriously I cannot believe some people here could even contemplate for a second that the club will use some sort of experimantal side or rest fit starting players for the WCC They will take this game with the utmost seriousness it deserves On top of that this sis also the perfect preaparation leading into rnd 1 some 10 days later against Souths