Originally Posted by
the_anticlough
For us to be a serious contender in L2 using LW's back 3, I always felt that Baldwin and Cameron had to be the worst two of that 4 (back 3 + goalie), but without the recruitment they were the best two (in line-ups with Stone, Slocs, Brinds, Rawlo). And then the main cog in the whole system is needed - Matty Palmer.
If LW had stayed he'd be using Warner, Ashby-Hammond, Robertson in his favoured system. We wouldn't have had the post-LW collapse in morale, and we know that LW would have stuck to his guns. He wasn't quite facing the existential crisis Ardley did, and SM probably thought he did.