While I think Burrow has had a good year particularly the back end, my main issue is you have to hide an extra half back when defending. While I take your point someone else can and does do that side of the game, that person has been Watkins getting through a lot of defence In particular the last 3 games of the year. It worked out fine we won, I just wonder if that's the right call potentially blunting Watkins attacking game

Nope, life is too short

...and that succintly Ferdy is the point. Burrow IS a great player BUT when he plays hooker (very effectively in his attacking progress) somebody else must take up the tackling stint to the long term detriment to that individual. The amount of tackles Watkins has been doing is not a good solution long term.

Burrow awards were separate to the argument, but when we tried discussing it properly you went all "but but but Burrow has won X, Y and Z awards"......considering you brought what awards Burrow has won into the argument to try back up his performances it's very shaky ground to then criticise the introduction of them.

My first post on this was to say Watkins doing the amount of tackles was not a long term solution.......however Burrow being awarded a dreamt up Lance Todd trophy award trumped all that apparently.

thats a fair enough argument, but i would put forward that Sinfield also took on extra tackles and was always capable of doing so (sinfield has always been a great defender) and in the GF Watkins still made 100metres, got an offload away, bust three tackles and made a clean break. He made more carries, more metres, more metres per carry than moon, he didnt struggle going forward.

I would also say that we nearly always had the three on the field, if Sinfield was playing loose and Burrow half, defensively we lost a loose and gained a hooker. Burrow at 9 and Sinfield at 6 allows an extra forward at 13. For over a wildly successful decade we have gotten enough tackles out of those 3.

Burrow has enough real accolades to trump all that regardless of any mistakes I made.

Burrow has been the long term solution for an unbelievably successful period.

Since he moved there in 2011

2011 we had Buderus
2012 we brought Lunt in
2013 we pretty much went with just Burrow after not trusting McShane
2014 we had Aiton but he was behind Burrow
2015 we had Aiton as starter with Burrow back up

Which season was trophyless?

Like I say I cannot argue it did work in the short term. But wouldn't want Watkins doing those sort of numbers week in week out. ( I actually don't know any of the stats just going with my eye watching the game). I think having a traditional hooker alongside burrow as well works better.

Rob Burrow had played for Leeds Rhinos for nearly 15 years, he has played nearly 450 games. An unbelievably successful 15 years where he has been an integral part. For almost all of the most important games he has played in a team with Kevin Sinfield and Danny Mcguire. He has in that time interchanged between hooker and half. He has in the last couple of months, from hooker, lead Leeds to a league leaders shield, Challenge cup, and Grand final victory, playing an important role in each. How hasnt he already answered the question?

Id agree he plays better when spelled. I'd always go with an interchange hooker.

I agree with everything here (except the number of awards)

The point really is that we would be better with a standard hooker at 9 with Burrow at 14. Mainly, in my opinion, due to the defensive implications. It means we have 3 halves defending on the fringes meaning people like Watkins have to shift in and take heavier traffic. It also takes away a mobile defender in the middle, which can be important if you have some big props who need some help.
There's a reason why Sinfield moved from playing loose forward to playing stand off, he couldn't handle the defensive workload anymore (that's no criticism of him btw). He was still playing the same game offensively (roughly) but not defensively.
Burrow played very well on Saturday and in the Hudds and Saints games but there have been times this season even where his distribution has been poor and he's been back to running up blind alleys. He's a cracking player and a Leeds legend but that still doesn't mean he can do the role we need of a hooker for a whole season.

Bring in a proper hooker and have Burrow off the bench.

I think Smokey makes some good points. It is a bit disingenuous of some to ignore his main points of argument in favour of picking out errors which are not the key part of his comment.

Rugby League is evolving all the time and good coaches find a way to best use the talent at their disposal. As Smokey pointed out Sinfield wore the 13 shirt for probably the majority of his career yet really slotted into the standoff role for much of that time. We now have props that play at loose forward and I recall Webb often slotting into acting half.

While Burrow is a natural scrum half he has adapted to become an excellent attacking hooker where he played in two World Club Championship finals and he was also selected to play for England as a hooker. He has now played a lot as a hooker for Leeds and we have found a way to accommodate him there as his positives out way any negatives IMO.

Someone said that he won the 2011 GF Harry Sunderland playing at scrum half and not hooker and another commented that Buderus played the full 80 minutes in that match as though to prove it. Well I recall Burrow won the HS Trophy getting unanimously all 37 judges votes, a feat that had never been done before, for making the biggest impact on the game.

What most people who witnessed this game will remember was his scintillating try where he ran through the heart of the Saints pack, which you could say was hooker territory, but what was equally impressive was his second half run, clean break and dummy before passing to Hall who scored. Burrow started his run from the dummy half position

I have seen the hookers role change from being a real "proper" hooker - in that they actually did hook the ball to being a half back who can tackle but needs interchanging usually with a poor substitute. IMO the most important aspect of the hookers role is the distribution and attacking runs from dummy half. Most hookers in SL are a bit of a compromise being neither outstanding in either attack or defence. And some like Houghton are top tacklers but very average distributors. In Burrows case if this means others do some extra tackling this is ok as we have the substitute bench to rotate the tacklers.

Because it is rare to find a Roby who can provide great attack and defence and I think we expect too much of players to fill what is the most demanding role in the team. My solution is to divide the role. So I would play 3 props and 3 back rowers in the pack to control the middle and have the scrum half go to acting half (which is really his role anyway and is what happened years ago) so in this case I would have another halfback on the bench and interchange as and when. This way you are keeping a fast nippy halfback where he can do the most damage on attack.

People made good points back but he did the usual trick of just saying "but but but Burrow has won X, Y and Z whilst playing there" and got a few of them wrong in the process.

You do pretty similar with the rest of your post above. You claim you could say Burrow's try in the 2011 GF was from the hooking territory ......no you couldn't. It came from first receiver off a pass from dummy half off Buderus.

Even McDermott this year realised we couldn't afford to carry Burrow in defence throughout the year and even opted to name Cuthbertson at 9 rather than start Burrow such are the defensive implications. When he had no other choice he went with Burrow. As great as the last three weeks have been let's be honest, we weren't playing our best rugby and it was just through sheer stubbornness that we got through those matches. Not because tactically wise we played good stuff and our defence had to cling on for dear life at times.

As for disingenuous and people not praising Burrow enough. I seem to recall you being very critical of the current Man of Steel at the start of the year claiming several better FB's in the league than him. I'd also say people trying to downplay how good a season Aiton had just because they're big Burrow fans are the disingenuous ones.

MOST of us are not disagreeing Burrow IS a great player, but it's the defensive implications that cause the issue. MOST agree Burrow is best off the bench as a gamechanger.

Well said.That's it in a nutshell.

But again, those defensive implications have been the same whether he plays 9 or 7 and have been apparent for 15 wildly successful years.

It's not like 5 years ago Burrow was a good defender. All that has changed is that instead of listing our stand off at loose and adding extra defensive work to him, we have listed him as a stand off, moved burrow to hooker and played an extra forward at loose.

The fact is that having JP Garbutt and Cuthbertson on the field has been really dangerous. Creative and good defensive hookers as like hens teeth, ones that can do 80 mins are unheard of and chances are we won't see one. There is one in SL right now and he is a generational talent. This 'proper hooker' to replace burrow isn't happening and certainly wasn't Aiton.

I am not interested in your previous rows as they have got in the way of this topic.



Not correct. You dismiss and do not address the main points in the rest of my post, choosing to respond to a remark made as an aside which by the way is valid as the unique way that Burrow jinked his way thought the Saints pack for his try was typical of what he does from dummy half in 'the thick of it' hooker territory.



It is good to know that you are privy to Mac's selection strategy which IMO was based more on form and Burrow's long term niggling injuries. I have no problem with Mac selecting Aiton as he deserved his starting role this season however had Burrow been fully fit and in form IMO he and the team would have been just as effective at hooker as Aiton who benefited greatly from the dramatic impact that Cuthbertson brought to the team.



I think this shows that you undervalue Burrow at 9. Burrow got injured again scoring a try at Wembley and missed the next three games which we lost. His return heralded a turnaround for the team in which he played no small part. Burrow's kicking and tactical awareness was a big plus and he wasn't far away from another Harry Sunderland Trophy in the final this time as a starting hooker.

We may not have played "our best rugby" in the run in but this comment totally ignores that fact that we lost key players as the season progressed and that most of the team had grown very tired by their efforts and had lost a bit of form including key man Cuthbertson. Whose to say Aiton, had he not been injured, would not have succumbed too to the dip in form experienced by his teammates.

Neither should you underplay the physical and mental toughness of the knockout playoff matches against the top sides which were our biggest tests of the season. These were never going to be "best rugby" occasions and that is where Burrow's skill, big match temperament and game management came to the fore.



Again this paragraph is just not accurate. My comment about being disingenuous was not about some people were "not praising Burrow enough". It was about you and others choosing to ignore and not respond to fair comment made while pursuing some historical errors which were less important than the main argument.

You are attempting to do the same here by introducing a spurious tangent which again is based on an incorrect statement. I am more than happy to discuss on a separate thread what I actually did say regarding the pros and cons of Hardaker but this thread is about Burrow and his pros and cons as a hooker.

I make no apologies for being a Burrow fan but this has certainly not meant I downplayed Aiton's excellent contribution for much of this season. But I have not tried to overplay his contribution either and some would have you believe he could not be replaced - a theory which has since been disproved.

Some people have very fixed views on what being a "proper" hooker is where defence is the most important factor. I beg to differ as I regard the hooker position as principally an attacking role as the term 'acting half back' implies. I put forward my thoughts on getting the team balance right to accommodate an attacking 9 but that has been overlooked.

Anyway my opinion cannot be wrong because AG says so

Quite how many of your "MOST of us" have since changed there minds since many of them were writing Burrow off earlier in the season and posted against his new contract.

To be fair, its not just Burrow who has suffered from this let's not forget the penchant leeds fans have had for deciding players aren't a proper x y z throughout this period.

Sinfield wasn't a proper loose because he wasn't big enough, now he isn't a proper half because he isn't fast enough.

Lee Smith wasn't a proper centre, neither was Carl Ablett, or hardaker.

Before burrow wasn't a proper hooker he wasn't a proper half.

Jimmy Keinhorst isn't a proper rugby player never mind not being a proper second rower.

As shocking as it seems now 8/9 years ago people on here would tell you that Peacock was a proper Prop and he was being wasted there instead of being a wide running second rower.

God knows how we have won so much without these 'proper' players.

Not forgetting of course that McDermott isn't a 'proper coach'.

And anyone who expresses any doubt isn't a 'proper fan'.

There's just a slight difference between expressing doubt about current form etc, and writing off players/coaches and in some instances petty name calling 'McDoughnut' etc. Those people, in my opinion, are quite rightly called out for making daft statements.

& because I live south of the river I'm not a proper fan.