How good is Samson Lee?

Samson Lee was hailed as a sensation playing for the Scarlets against the Dragons last night. Despite the pre match prediction by the Dragons "that they would target the Scarlets scrum". The opposite actually occurred and in contrast to previous matches this season, it was the Scarlets scrum which dominated.

The commentators on BBC 2 credited this transformation on one man (or boy) 19 year old Samson Lee who started at tight head for the Scarlets. I think most knowledgeable pundits acknowledge the support he had from Mathew Rees and the south seas and South African beef behind him in the second row, but there can be no doubt that this match marked a significant improvement in the Scarlets scrum.

Just how good is Lee? He certainly looks the part, with a chunky physique and already carrying the wounds of battle with heavily bandaged knees and a cauliflower ear! Is he good enough for a Wales call up this Autumn, or should he continue his education with the Scarlets?

He looks better than Adam jones at the same age.

Still very young and I'm sure if managed correctly could be a sensation. Best way to tell how good any prop is at any age is to ask other props. It will be interesting to hear what other players think of him.

If you really want to know how good he is then play him against a good french or english pack. The dragons scrum is one of the worst in the pro 12 so I would see how he is against better opposition. (I am a dragons fan BTW). I hope he does well, but he still very young for a prop.

Probably not a great idea to start a young promising player at tighthead against a top French club. Bring him on for a taster, but don't start him.

Props need to learn their trade gradually.

maestegmafia wrote:Probably not a great idea to start a young promising player at tighthead against a top French club. Bring him on for a taster, but don't start him.

Props need to learn their trade gradually.

French prop like Andy Sheridan ;-)

BigTrevsbigmac wrote:

maestegmafia wrote:Probably not a great idea to start a young promising player at tighthead against a top French club. Bring him on for a taster, but don't start him.

Props need to learn their trade gradually.

French prop like Andy Sheridan ;-)

Sheridan is English. More like Thomas Domingo.

Good,

but he isn't the scrum demolishing sensation the comentators last night would have you believe!!

He put to bed a poor dragons tight 5 but he had one of the best scrummaging hookers around inside him, John had the TH in his pocket, and the lock combo behind him were much heavier duty than the powder puff Nimmo and Jones.

IMO he went well, it was a good game to give him a start but as stated give him a taste of HC rugby in the latter stages of games, this is not a 10 or winger, if you are good enough you are certainly not old enough when it comes to the set piece, props tend to need to be nurtured and looked after when young, a little like a boxer is. Let him demolish the dragons, have a crack at Sheridan late on when fresh and Sheri has been on the pitch for 80, but first scrum of the match V a good french unit, Northampton or Ospreys and he'll be found wanting, as will the rest of the Scarlets tight 5 I suspect (although was impressed with the locks last night)

thebluesmancometh wrote:Good,

but he isn't the scrum demolishing sensation the comentators last night would have you believe!!

He put to bed a poor dragons tight 5 but he had one of the best scrummaging hookers around inside him, John had the TH in his pocket, and the lock combo behind him were much heavier duty than the powder puff Nimmo and Jones.

IMO he went well, it was a good game to give him a start but as stated give him a taste of HC rugby in the latter stages of games, this is not a 10 or winger, if you are good enough you are certainly not old enough when it comes to the set piece, props tend to need to be nurtured and looked after when young, a little like a boxer is. Let him demolish the dragons, have a crack at Sheridan late on when fresh and Sheri has been on the pitch for 80, but first scrum of the match V a good french unit, Northampton or Ospreys and he'll be found wanting, as will the rest of the Scarlets tight 5 I suspect (although was impressed with the locks last night)

I agree.

But have you ever seen a better 19 year old tighthead prop?

maestegmafia wrote:
But have you ever seen a better 19 year old tighthead prop?

Luke Cowan-dickie at LH and Kyle Sinckler at TH ( 4 months younger than Lee) helped detroy the Wales U20 scrum back in February. Admittedly Lee was on the bench.

LondonTiger wrote:

maestegmafia wrote:
But have you ever seen a better 19 year old tighthead prop?

Luke Cowan-dickie at LH and Kyle Sinckler at TH ( 4 months younger than Lee) helped detroy the Wales U20 scrum back in February. Admittedly Lee was on the bench.

Yes agreed Sinckler looks special he is bigger and more athletic than Lee too.

Well we will all see who's best in about ten years time when they are all fully cooked.

MM

No I have never seen a better TH prop at the age of 19, but I had never seen a better 19 year old centre than Henson, I had never seen a better 10 than Morgan at 17, and I had never seen a better lock option at the age of 16 than Gareth Allen...

Thats the funny thing about maturation, where they are is not really an indicator of where they'll end up!!

maestegmafia wrote:Well we will all see who's best in about ten years time when they are all fully cooked.

Joe Marler is on simmer at 22 - should be quite a prospect when oven ready!

BigTrevsbigmac wrote:

maestegmafia wrote:Well we will all see who's best in about ten years time when they are all fully cooked.

Joe Marler is on simmer at 22 - should be quite a prospect when oven ready!

Hopefully his taste in haircut will improve too as he matures. Same goes for Josh "swampy" Nalvidi at Blues.

Marler is losing his hair about as quickly as Cole did - so hair style will become irrelevant

LondonTiger wrote:Marler is losing his hair about as quickly as Cole did - so hair style will become irrelevant

Ha ha ha...! Very Good

Scott Andrew and Cai Griffiths were also both regarded as highly promising and thought of as future international stars.

With good luck, hard work and good coaching Sampson Lee might be the long term successor to Adam Jones or maybe he will be another Cai Griffiths.

Judging him against our pack is a bit false but we will only know the more game time he gets.

We (Welsh) are pretty short of options on the T/Head so I wouldn't be surprised to see him involved in some shape during the AIs and fair play to the Scarlets they have a pretty good track record managing youngsgters so he in a good place.

Shifty wrote:Scott Andrew and Cai Griffiths were also both regarded as highly promising and thought of as future international stars.

With good luck, hard work and good coaching Sampson Lee might be the long term successor to Adam Jones or maybe he will be another Cai Griffiths.

Sampson Lee is a completely different story to those too. you are being pedantic by suggesting it.

Scott Andrew and Cai Griffiths might have been touted as being half decent but they never pushed a junior all black pack backwards and constructed to their first ever loss.

MM

Are you claiming all of the welsh tight 5 involved in the AB game are going to be superstars?

To be fair Samson doesn't seem to bad, but it was against the Dragons and they are not the best scrummagers. Samson was yellow carded for dropping the scrum against the Ospreys, who are a better pack. Personally I think it is too soon to try and work out how good he is. A few seasons ago people were putting Simon Gardener in the catagory or possible welsh cap, and now he is apparently signing for Cardiff RFC, after lasting a few weeks at Rotherham.

Is his actual real name 'Samson'??

TH prop is a tough enough place to ply your trade without the added pressure of being named after a strongman of biblical famousness.

Scarlets should put all their efforts into finding a winger named Speedie Gonzalez. Deflect attention away from Samson.

Or a loosehead named Hulk.

We've already got Duw North mun...

Casartelli wrote:Or a loosehead named Hulk.

Ain't he a Brasilian footballer?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulk_(footballer)

ScarletSpiderman wrote:

Casartelli wrote:Or a loosehead named Hulk.

Ain't he a Brasilian footballer?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulk_(footballer)

Impressive football knowledge SS. But 'Hulk' isn't his real name, and he wouldn't last one scrummage, so I'm going to have to rule him out of contention.

Cas - if he wears it on his shirt it's good enough for me

Do you have a jersey with 'ScarletSpiderman' on it?

In prop years he's still a puppy! The focus should be on making sure he gets plenty of good walks, prop food and obedience traning.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:To be fair Samson doesn't seem to bad, but it was against the Dragons and they are not the best scrummagers. Samson was yellow carded for dropping the scrum against the Ospreys, who are a better pack. Personally I think it is too soon to try and work out how good he is. A few seasons ago people were putting Simon Gardener in the catagory or possible welsh cap, and now he is apparently signing for Cardiff RFC, after lasting a few weeks at Rotherham.

I think it's a bit harsh to hold that yellow against him as it was the Scarlets 1st scrum offence (after a few Ospreys scrum offences) and was an immediate yellow as opposed to a warning, or just a pen.

Gardiener did and does have potential, but apparently his attitude stank and so never took his opportunities.

I agree though, it's too early to be talking about Lee being better than Adam Jones or being the next superstar - I worry their going to call him up and play him in the AIs which IMO would be too soon - what if he gets done by the opposing prop and has an awful game - to then be slated for being too poor for international rugby, and have that game held against him for years - or even worse is injured ala North and his development put back.

Thank you offload, for refocusing this wayward thread. No way of knowing how he will turn out.

Casartelli would recommend however, that until he becomes the undisputed best tighthead on the planet, that he just goes by Sam Lee. Or Sammy Lee (another football reference there for you, SS). Or Sammo.

If he retains the 'Samson' in his professional capacity, then anything less than world class excellence will result in him drowning in a pool of shattered ironic expectations.

Which wouldn't be nice for the lad.

Preist - yeah the yellow was a bit harsh, it was just an example of how we can sign people up on here for one game and slag them the next. Yeah I prey he doesn't get called up, as IMO he needs to be given game time regionally before being thrown to the international scene. But i must be honest I do find it funny when you think that we have produced two welsh international front rowers (Owens, Jones) so far and Lee and Evans look possible to follow in their footsteps.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:Preist - yeah the yellow was a bit harsh, it was just an example of how we can sign people up on here for one game and slag them the next. Yeah I prey he doesn't get called up, as IMO he needs to be given game time regionally before being thrown to the international scene. But i must be honest I do find it funny when you think that we have produced two welsh international front rowers (Owens, Jones) so far and Lee and Evans look possible to follow in their footsteps.

I know, if we produce any more promising front row players we run the risk of being called Viet-Scarlets!!!

Keep an eye out for young Scott Wilson up here at the Falcons. The kid has obviously spent time with Carl hayman whilst he was here...cos wow the boy can scrummage...

England u18's last season - going into the U20's i think.

One to watch.

Casartelli wrote:If he retains the 'Samson' in his professional capacity, then anything less than world class excellence will result in him drowning in a pool of shattered ironic expectations.

Which wouldn't be nice for the lad.

It's a terrible choice of name and the blame lies with his parents. What if he'd grown up to have an interest in - gulp - fashion?

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:

Casartelli wrote:If he retains the 'Samson' in his professional capacity, then anything less than world class excellence will result in him drowning in a pool of shattered ironic expectations.

Which wouldn't be nice for the lad.

It's a terrible choice of name and the blame lies with his parents. What if he'd grown up to have an interest in - gulp - fashion?

it's probably because of his name that he turned into a hard as nails front row forward - (see A Boy Named Sue, Johnny Cash for a case in point)

But I can't ever see him going into fashion as he's from a really rough and tumble Gypsie family apparently.

Surely 'A Boy Named Sue' isn't appropriate at all in this case? If his name was Wendy Lee, you'd have a point!

Yeah but I'd imagine all the other boys/men would want to take a pop at someone names Samson to say they've defeated a biblical strong man!, and also loads of people would take the mick out of him, meaning he'd get into lots of fits - just like the 'Sue' of the Johnny Cash song!

Seeing as he has his mohawk-kinda haircut now, what will happen when he grows it?

Let's just he doesn't come up against a loosehead called Delilah Davies...

Samson Lee comes from a Irish Traveller family. He is a hard nosed kid, never takes a step backwards. I remember him turning out as a 17 year old for Pontyberem against Tondu in a Division 2 West game. A fight broke out and Samson was in the middle of it and believe me he does not sling his handbag lightly.

He is a young kid with bags of potential but nowhere near the finished product. He needs nuturing and then watch out.

Yup, I really hope he keeps developing and isn't messed around. If he does reach his potential then he could be very good and it would mean Wales can stop messing Rhodri Jones around as a TH!

jeff stones dad wrote:Samson Lee comes from a Irish Traveller family. He is a hard nosed kid, never takes a step backwards. I remember him turning out as a 17 year old for Pontyberem against Tondu in a Division 2 West game. A fight broke out and Samson was in the middle of it and believe me he does not sling his handbag lightly.

He is a young kid with bags of potential but nowhere near the finished product. He needs nuturing and then watch out.

We may want to keep that little snippet of information to ourselves

Already been capped at Wales Under 20's - same as Steve Shingler!

That's ok then, as long as he's played against another under 20's nation who use their under 20's as their second team, etc, etc

Ah, yes. France do that! Has he played against France Under 20's?

How good is Samson Lee?
I heard he once tackled George North in training, the resulting explosion was the Big Bang.

cracking LIVE game of Rugby on S4C CLIC. Llandovery College V nEATH pORT tALBOT.

First start in the HEC today against Clemons and he is looking very good vs Thomas Domingo

Depending on who you listen to, he either;

- held the scrum together against Clermont until he was subbed or
- got 'mullered'.

With the showbiz name and the 'interesting' family background, whether he's around for 10 games or 10 seasons, it looks like Samson will generate some interest and opinion at least!