To be honest I think Brough is probably the most overrated player in the game at the moment, just my opinion of course...

ha ha ---man of steel overrated.

Just going back to sinfield,my point about playing him at No6/half back is that the opposition know he his just going to pass the ball on or kick on the last tackle,he's never gonna do a Roger Millward/Alan Hardisty and dummy then go the length of the field which means he's easier to defend against as they can just lay off him.
Just my thoughts.

What? He's had one good season and that makes him immune from criticism? Brough is a similar type of player to Sammut. When he hits the ground running he's devastating and can win games by himself. If he doesn't, then he's largely anonymous.

That's the dilemma for the coach: relaible - but predicatable, or unpredicatable but erratic. We don't seem to have the Millwards/Hardistys with the all round game and individual skills to call on now - or maybe that reflects the way defences are more tightly drilled, and the increased number of substitutes in the modern game mean you don't get to run at tired players as much. Have to admit McNamara has probably got this call right. Just hope the Burgess clan don't decide to enter their own family team this year!

Which is a fair point. However I would counter that with the idea that the reason Leeds work so well is that they have the organiser, the puppeteer, in Sinfield. The one that guides the team around, dictates the plays and organises very very well. Then they have the flashy, off-the-cuff, break out of nowhere halfback to complement that, in Danny McGuire (or Burrow when McGuire is out). There's a reason they chose not to play Sinfield & Sutcliffe together in the halves this year, instead swapping Burrow and Sinfield around between halves and hooker, to accomodate Sutcliffe (who is in a very similar mould to Sinfield).
Addy plays a similar role for us when he's at 6 (albeit not as well as Sinfield), which I believe is one of the reasons we looked better this year with Addy & Sammut, rather than when Gale was in the side.

I have absolutely no problem playing Sinfield at 6 for England. I think it's the right thing to do. But the 7 that plays with him MUST be one of those players like you describe. If you played another "organiser" type half, then exactly what you describe will happen. Which is why the most likely combo will be Sinfield & Chase I think.


As far as Brough goes, I agree with the idea of him being like Sammut. When Brough hits form, he's outstanding. And he's hit form in most games this year, hence the accolades. He does have that inconsistency though, where if he starts off badly, he either goes missing, or completely messes everything up. It's that same dilemma of whether you want to risk him having a bad game and you losing because of it, in order to have that chance of him having a good game and winning you the match almost single handedly.

Can someone name me one British half back from the last 30 years that has dominated every game he has played in?

Reg Bowden

that person hasn't been born yet who dominated every game he played in and you can go back to the beginning of time,but below are some great half backs of the last 50 years who dominated a great % of the games they played in:-
andy gregory,shaun edwards,alan hardisty,roger millward,,dave topliss,lewis jones,ellery hanley,alan hepworth,alex murphy,steve nash,barry seabourne,jonathan davis,david watkins,john woods,nigel stephenson,paul harkin,tommy smales.......

I could go on.Britain has produced some GREATS,that's for sure.

All great players madas and of course you are right nobody can dominate every single game they play in, in any sport.

Also you cannot dominate behind a beaten pack,so you would need other people to be on top of their game to enable you to be on top of your game

Welcome to the forum Reg.

No one is arguing that we haven't produced great half backs. In the last 30 years only Gregory & Edwards have dominated for large parts of the season & that is mainly because they were in an all-conquering Wigan side. Andy Gregory, the best scrum half of my generation, I saw him have countless ordinary games for Widnes, Warrington & Leeds. Edwards, similarly, wouldn't have been half the player in an ordinary side. He had a unique ability to sniff out an opportunity but he wasn't a creator & would have had a fraction of the chances in a poorer team. Brough, along with Long, is the best natural scrum half we have produced since then.

Great half backs can shine behind a beaten pack. Mediocre ones can't. I suppose it depends on the extent of beaten, in reality.

Re Brough--no argument from me there as I rate him very highly and have seen him grow in the last few seasons.
England's loss imo.

One day the real story will come out.

That I agree with. There's clearly more to Brough not getting picked by McNamara than simply he doesn't rate him. Various hints have been made to back that up too. I'm still yet to hear a solid rumour as to what that reason is though.

Bowden was a classy player, that's for sure, mind you the Widnes pack in those days was rarely outshone so he had a solid basis to work his 'magic'. I never did work out how he produced the famous 'Stuart Wright Bounce' though. Wright would hare it down the wing, Bowden would kick through and the ball would [ialways[/i jump into his arms - he never even had to bend his back......ever. Just amazing!

After a bruising match against Widnes at Odsal in the 70's, Stuart Wright was shouting at Barry Seabourne in the Players Bar telling him how much stick etc he was going to get when they played at Widnes.
In the return at Widnes the first time Wright got the ball he set off flying down the wing, when Seabourne shoved his elbow in his face, I think he broke his jaw, one of the worst "tackles" I've ever seen, and if memory serves me he wasn't even penalised

It was certainly a tough game back in the 70s. I remember seeing a video of the Leeds vs Leigh Cup final at Wembley with tigertot. It was the game Hynes was sent off. The casual violence that was ignored in that game was unbelievable. Even 20 years ago the game was much dirtier than it is now. Is it over sanitised?

Thinking back to the first scrum in that game....I now work with Tony Fisher's ex son-in-law; we had an amusing chat the other day about Tony. You accepted things back then which would make you shudder now. When Briers slapped Ablett recently most fans would have laughed 20 years ago rather than screamed for his head, such was the patheticness of it.

Get your retaliation in first, was how it was referred to in those days. It was a hard, and pretty cynical game back then.

My main gripe is that the Coach of the Year is chosen before the Grand Final. I don't have a problem with them picking the MoS before the GF, doesn't really matter that Brough wasn't playing today.

But the top coaches are all aiming to win the GF. Baloo had a very good season but if he was only aiming for the league leader's shield then he had a much easier job than Wane, Smith and McDermott. And to win the CC as well makes Wane's right to the award indisputable IMO.

I think there's probably a feeling that coaching Wigan is much easier than coaching the Giants. But Wane did a magnificent job in replacing his half backs with two seemingly inferior players and still improving the team. Tomkins apart there are aren't that many superstars in the Wigan team.

In year's to come I think this season's award will come to be seen as an aberration, like Endacott winning it in 2000. But only because they made the decision a week early.