There's been a lot posted, probably over the last couple of years, about Sinfield's changing defensive role. Many have claimed the move to SO being to lessen his defensive workload compared to playing loose, when many thought Sinfield defended centrally.
This point kind of bothered me, and I didn't feel it was right. There are a number of reasons behind that:
- When I played, I mainly played right side second row, and sometimes at LF. Right side second row was my preferred position, because I got more involved in defence, as I was in the middle four. Playing RHS, I'd have outside me: LF, centre, halfback and a winger. At loose, I was never as comfortable defending out wide.
- When I coached, I'd have two ways of organising my defence, depending on who I was playing at loose. If I had a ball player (I had a cracker in 2008 who'd been at Saracens RU and we got contracted at Harlequins RL) I'd line up as above. However I'd often put a player who was more like another prop (2009 and 2011 I had real hitters there who both also got contracts at Harlequins RL) there and in those alignments, he'd defend in the middle four with the second rows outside those four, and then the usual centre/half/winger alignment.
- It's just not what I remembered about how Leeds lined up.

So thinking about that, and what I could remember of past seasons, I found the only piece of historical footage I had, the 2007 highlights DVD. By the way, the quality is awful, it looks like VHS copied onto DVD. Our Grand Final defence, opened from left to right as: Donald, Mcguire, Senior, Sinfield, Ellis, Peacock, Diskin, Leuluai, JJB, Toopi, Burrow and Smith. We maintained that alignment pretty much throughout. I scanned through the season highlights, and it was pretty much the same, except often the other way around, with Sinfield at R4 rather than L4.

So if we look at our current alignment, all that's changed is that Sinfield and his centre have swapped: We usually have Sinfield at R3 and Watkins at R4. Now, I don't think we can put that down to being a SO or LF, but simply a swap of a couple of spots in how the defence structures. Referring back to the alignment I used, I think I'd do the same if I was playing a half at loose as part of a three pivot structure, providing I had a defensively sound centre.

Taking this a bit further into the Burrow at hooker scenario. Obviously his defensive role hasn't changed. What we have changed is rather than our trio being 6/7/13, they're at 6/7/9, but taking the same spots in defence. The player taking that extra defence is of the second rows: previously one second row was in the middle four, now both are, or when we play Bailey there, then Bailey has that role and the second row on whichever side we're hiding two halves.

Thoughtful analysis as always Richie. Do you think that the change of moving Sinfield outside his centre has been significant? It could be that small positional changes make a fundamental difference to a players defensive role. I remember (and I have only memories to back this up) Sinfield was extremely adept at knowing when to defend strongly around the central ruck area - often putting several consecutive tackles in to shift a games momentum or shut down a team on a roll. This was especially important in the days of scooting from dummy half when there could be 20+ penalties in a game from play the ball infringements. It may have been easier to do that being one further in. Ellis was also very good at this, often putting is consecutive tackles to kill an attack at key points in a game. Standing one wider may impact on his ability to make those telling contributions. I always saw Sinfield as a clever defender, not a big hitter, not a tackling machine, just really smart.

I seem to remember him often with around 30 tackles per game. I'd be surprised if he was close to this these days

Sinfield is 4th behind JP. JJB and Ablett in tackles made in 2013 with 631. If I have worked it out correctly he is averaging approx. 20 tackles per game.

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Thats higher than I thought. Had a look back in time, and got the following
2003 - 655 from 30 -> 21.8 per game
2004 - 650 from 29 -> 22.4
2005 - 518 from 26 -> 19.9
2006 - 465 from 22 -> 21.1
2007 - 817 from 30 -> 27.2
2008 - 748 from 28 -> 26.7
2009 - 758 from 25 -> 30.3
2010 - 587 from 23 -> 25.5
2011 - 525 from 31 -> 16.9
2012 - 522 from 31 -> 16.8
2013 - 661 from 25 -> 26.4

That shows an interesting pattern. During our best period he was well up the tackle count. It then drops off for 2011 and 2012. This year its back up, which I think reflects a subtle difference in his defensive role getting more involved. I seem to remember him being wider last year, possibly 2nd man in, but he's been 3rd man in most of this year, and to better effect

Yes, that one spot in can make a big difference.
I think what I was really getting at was that the move from LF to SO hadn't really caused a change in the defensive alignment, and that switch between Sinfield and the centre could have occurred anyway. I always felt that one in from the winger was the "hide" position, and then next in from that required the clever reading of the game.

You have to admire anyone even attempting to compare the defensive alignments of teams coached by Tony Smith and Brian McDermott.

On Friday for instance Sinfield defended third man in on the right or third man in on the left or 2nd man in on the right or 4th man in on the right or at times during his stint at hooker having led the kick chase in centre field never able to get away from that middle channel on the following set at all.

I'd like to see the previous threads (one in particular) where this was discussed.

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Are you saying that Sinfield hasn't taken up that 'hide' position since his permanent switch to stand-off ?

Is Sinfield's positioning now generally the same as it was in 2011 and 2012 ?

I picked a random game and checked the opening few sets (the pink hair debacle at Langtree Park in 2012) and Sinfield defended in the 'hide' position but then I considered that McGuire didn't play that game so I picked another televised game that season when all three pivots played (home to St Helens - two months later) and Sinfield was still operating in the 'hide' position with alarmingly for me Burrow/McGuire paired defensively on the left in the opening minutes. In the 7th minute after a scrum on the right edge Burrow stayed right in the 'hide' position which had been occupied by Sinfield and by the 4th tackle Sinfield had got himself into the 'hide' position on the left. Stopping and starting reviewing that game and Sinfield was usually on the outside of McGuire.

That was the context of earlier discussions that I can recall and there has been a necessary adjustment since then. Whereas there may well be less difference now in 2013 looking back to 2007 it's taken three seasons for us to get here.

Those things happen....in the same way that sometimes a prop ends up at acting half.

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I'm saying that at some point Sinfield moved from defending at 4 to defending at 3, swapping places with the centre. Whether that coincided with his move to SO, I don't know without enough videos to go over. The personnel in use and rest of the defensive structure would indicate it needn't have been so.
Of course there have also been instances where we have only had two of Burrow/Sinfield/Mcguire on the field at once, in which case the two players on would, I'd expect, defend at 2.

That's a little different to having someone you've detailed with a wider defensive role - presumably in order to keep some petrol in the tank for offensive duties - getting tied in with a central kick chase and then worked over defensively around the ruck and marker in the following clearing set. Lead a deep kick chase in that situation and the opposition is likely to spend at least the next three or four carries one off the ruck with a reasonably high probability of repeat involvements for the marker defence, as happened to Sinfield on occasions at Wigan.




But I don't think Sinfield moved from defending at 4 to defending at 3 directly - that situation only evolved after he spent a significant period also defending at 2 in and the evidence of the Opta stats (for what they're worth) in 2011 and 2012 provided by The Eagle above appears to me to back that up albeit he's over-stated Sinfield's number of appearances in relation to those total counts from the SL website prior to the 2013 figures.



Sure, as I've evidenced in the bad hair day at St Helens from 2012 but I addressed that potential anomaly by finding an example of a game around that same period when all three pivots played and Sinfield was still in the 'hide' position in that game, indeed changing from 'hide' position on the right to 'hide' position on the left - showing he was being quite deliberately tasked in that way at that time while being placed outside an inferior defender in doing so.

As you started this thread now with:

=#0000FF"There's been a lot posted, probably over the last couple of years, about Sinfield's changing defensive role. Many have claimed the move to SO being to lessen his defensive workload compared to playing loose, when many thought Sinfield defended centrally.
This point kind of bothered me, and I didn't feel it was right."

I think it's entirely relevant to trace the evolution of Sinfield's positioning to show how his defensive load was initially reduced with his move to permanently starting at stand-off but has since increased again as he in part (along with I would suggest Watkins in particular) are tasked with picking up the slack created by operating with a non-tackling (in the traditional sense) hooker and having to shield three pivots on the fringes.

For example Watkins has averaged over 30 tackles per game in the Play-Off series in 2013. According to the Opta stats he was involved in 9% of all Leeds' tackles V Warrington and St Helens and an even higher 10% V Wigan - in the latter game equal with Bailey in that regard and joint second only to Peacock. Moon in the opposite centre position 6, 8 and 7% respectively. Burrow has almost always defended on the left between centre and wing so Moon is less affected but on the opposite edge Watkins is usually now to be found defending with the relatively protected Sinfield, 'hide' McGuire and Jones-Bishop to his right giving him a ton of work, so is it really all that surprising to see him take to the field patched-up and threat blunted?

If we have (for example, Lunt) at hooker, and Burrow, Mcguire and Sinfield as pivots, how many pivots would we hide on the fringes?
Now if we have Burrow at hooker, and Mcguire and Sinfield as pivots, how many pivots would we hide on the fringes?

What we're doing there is no different to what we would do if we used a pivot at loose.
I checked Chris Joynt's bio by the way, as I was sure I remembered him saying something about the difference between left and right. He said he never liked playing right second row, because that put him in the middle four in defence, because Sculthorpe was hidden out on the right along with one of the halves. Wheras on the left, there was only one half so the second row was four in. He didn't state whether Sculthorpe defended at 3 or 4, inside our outside the centre.