Bent has played really well this season and definitely deserves the nod. His scrummaging has been really strong, which is the key element of a tighthead's game [to state the bleeding obvious]. I'm of the opinion that he's playing the best rugby of his career at the moment and that he has been out-performing John Ryan since the season started. I can see why you'd stick with Ryan given how well he went last season, but Bent is showing well and on current form I'd have him edging it.simonokeeffe wrote:Going by the reaction to Bent's callup on the social internet media Herbst has stayed fit for more than 6 minutes and not been outplayed by Ah Here, and Bealham swallowed Paul Wallace overnight and hasnt been accordioned in half the games this season
Herbst has a lot of ground to make up on everybody. He's in his fourth season, has been injury-prone throughout and has been part of an unconvincing Ulster pack for his entire stint here. He has arguably been shown this season by the performances of Rodney Ah You, who looks in better shape than he has done since the 2014-15 season.
Ah You has very impressive explosive power [as he showed against us recently], but has been incredibly inconsistent in terms of workrate and fitness throughout his career, and is prone to lapses of concentration throughout second half scrums when he begins to tire. However, he can actually provide a lot of impact off the bench - in 304 minutes of gametime for Ulster thus far, he's had 34 carries for 70m with 2 clean breaks, 4 defenders beaten and 3 offloads. That's outstanding for a tighthead. I'm not sure he's got the extremely competitive mentality that you need to thrive at test level, but if Gibbs can motivate him, he becomes a viable candidate again.
Happy for Bent to get the deserved recognition though.
