As a player, as a captain or as a coach?

A player and a captain.

Has Sinfield done any coaching?

Nobody has mentioned Francis Cummins yet, strange.

As a player and a captain. Can I ask what that is based on?

I'd imagine you've been around to watch Sinfield's career but doubt you saw very much of Hynes'

itsnice to look back i was a little boy when McLlellen was capt and remember the 1957 cup final,but that was MACs only trophy although he may have won the yorkshire cup in 1958.what i do remember about Mcllellen was the way he used to bo11--k the players during the game.older blokes around that time used to say jim brough was the greatest capt ,before that it will have been joe thompson.
Sinny has captained leeds to 3 grand final wins as old as i am that will do for me .
by the time he has finished he will be regarded as leeds greats capt and the most successful

good thread though, my old mans cousin won the lance todd under kieth mclellan, maybe thats why he rates him, opinions count, remember GB were world champions 50's -70's, now they are whipping boys & sinfield can't get a start.

Captained us to an unheralded 3 championships.

You rate Kevin Sinfield a better player than Syd Hynes based on captaining Championship winning sides?

Did you see Syd Hynes make any of his 366 Leeds appearances or 13 for Great Britain including his outstanding performances in GB's last Ashes series win and that came in Australia.

Kevin Sinfield (good club man that he is) has some way to go.

Not to agree or disagree with your overall point, but that part is totally irrelevant, since the players they were up against were also part-time. If you trained 5 hours a week and drank like the proverbial fish in the modern game you'd get taken to the cleaners, no matter how gifted you were.

I've tried that argument on the Wigan board but they won't have it, all British players are garbage since wigan stopped winning things.

This has nothing to do with Syd Hynes as I have never seen him play.

You sure about that?

In thirty years time, when some player who hasn't even been born yet is leading us to a title, will we be saying that player isn't fit to lace the boots of Kevin Sinfield?

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Particularly in sports.
Except in cases where an objective measure of individual performance without reference to directly competing against a competitor of yesteryear, such as athletics. In such cases we do realise that athletic and sporting capabilities have improved significantly over the years.

Sinny or Wardy-big question.

Couldn't agree more, some of the legends of yesteryear (more skillful or not) would be blowing by half time in a SL game.

Different era, different game. They'd be blowing after 2 minutes in the front-row but there again they'd adapt to the modern game and how it is played today.

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Syd Hynes had the skills of a half back, played in the three quarters, tackled like a forward and no one on the planet took liberties with him.

Plenty tried and wish they hadn't despite Syd weighing in at twelve and a half stone. Not many British players can claim to have scored a crucial try in an Ashes decider at the SCG but Syd can and that is the pinnacle of any player's career.

It was a different game back then, not this sanitised version we see today.

I'd imagine a player like Syd could have adapted to the modern game fairly comfortably but I'm not so sure many modern day players could make the return journey quite the same.

I think you'd be surprised tvoc - modern day rugby league players are perfectly capable of looking after themselves when things get a bit tasty (see off-field evidence of recent years). I don't buy the idea that they wouldn't be able to cope with taking a few smacks around the chops.

Yeah but they're about 60 years old now.

And in the reverse case they wouldn't be born yet so go figure.





Men were men in those days, Barry Seabourne never played with anything less than a dislocated shoulder, Alan Smith had no ligaments in his knee and they were just the backs. Nowadays pull a hamstring, strain a ligament and it's six weeks - bloody puffs the lot of 'em.

It was expected during every game that you would see someone run off the bench to wrench Barry Seabournes shoulder back into place, and then he'd carry on, no substitutions, no fuss, no half a season off after an operation



I agree with your comments on Syd Hynes for the reasons that you stated, its impossible to compare the game then and now but yes, players like Syd Hynes had that natural ability that would transpose easily if he was 16 yrs old and had the Rhinos Academy at his disposal today

Or, to play devil's advocate, the clubs and the game in general really didn't give a monkeys about their long term health and well-being as they were only semi-pro and easily replaced.

They didn't need replacing they just got on with it, I think that is the point.

You want to pop along to one of the ex-players reunions and see what "just getting on with it" does for your health in later life.

No doubt but bodies fall apart naturally with or without playing rugby league.

Nuuuurrrrssssse.

well your old mans cousin was my boyhood idol great player

i agree