JWarriors wrote:
Thats exactly why Escare's time at Wigan thus far has been overrated. In reality we got him because Catalans no longer wanted him, and people weren't expecting much. He was good (I'm not saying otherwise), but Tomkins offered much more. The reason some people don't see it like this is because we expected a lot more from Tomkins, and he gave us less than our initial expectations. Whereas Escare exceeded (his much lower) expectations and took us by surprise.
This is exactly how I see it. There's a definite loss of pace there, but I can see Sam developing into a much better version of Luke Dorn in his time at Cas. Not the quickest over a sprint, but has the brain & guile to be very dangerous, and can play a bigger role in organising the team than he did in his early 20s.
That said, Escare definitely contributed more at full back last year than Tommy did at 7, so moving Sam into the halves is probably still my preferred option.
