Or Rangi Chase if that's the criterion. No, seriously, sorry, I should have said 'Aussie-based' posters.

Maybe it was 'off days', and though I agree his kicking was poor in the final, I'd say it was at worst average in the rest of this tournament.
Sinfield is not the greatest field kicker in the game, but IMO he is one of the best in the English game.

I agree! But i do think the lack of competition within our game has a part to play alongside the fact the aussies are years ahead of us, and all we do is copy what they do, by which time they are onto a new thing (a'la Leeds Rhinos trying to adapt the Storms dominance in the ruck, just as the Storm moved on to playing much much faster after the NRL introduced a second referee).

Rugby League isnt out No1 sport, probably not even our second or third, but then football is and we are s*** at that.

Could it be the case that in this country we put so much emphasis on competing at grass roots and in schools, while the aussies focus purely on winning, as do other nations in other sports.

I would say maybe the likes of Wakefield should be blamed for not providing competition for the rubbish Leeds, Saints and Wigan players?


I thought you didn't want to pass blame onto a particular club, yet you see fit to credit a team that didn't have any current players in the squad.



You didn't seem to have a problem attacking the way Sinfield played. I also see you failed to acknowledge the fact that Sinfeild was involved in more than 2/3rd's of the total points scored by England. Surely such an untalented and average player couldn't happen to fluke their way to achieving that?

Sinfield has done OK for England, he has a few man of the match awards and Golden boot nomination. Brough (apart from when he's played in the lower leagues) has never performed consistantly over a season, this coupled with the fact he's never managed to hold down a place at a club for more than 18 months suggests to me he hasn't got attitude or ability to play against the Aussies or challenge for SL. Sinfield on the other hand has been one of SLs best players for a decade and has captained a team of unerachievers to their clubs most successful era. Leeds are a good side partly because of him not inspite of him.

Brough never got a shot at a big club for a reason, and it wasnt his attitude. Long, Pryce, Briers, all terrible attitudes, all got a go at the big time because their skill demanded it.

Brough is no different to Chase. A player who looks good in a poor side, but struggles in the big time. You forgive him his mistakes and blame others for not giving him the platform, and wax lyrical when he looks good regardless of the efforts of others. If Brough had more skill in his big toe than Sinfield in his whole body, you would think Brough would, by the age 28, at some time showed it.

Ill readily accept Sinfield isnt as good as his counterparts for Aus and NZ, he is however the best we have. Brough isnt close,

Brough will have a strong start to next season and will carry that on up to round 18, from there on he will crawl back under the rock he came from, just like his team will, sad really. Sinfield on the other hand...well he goes strong for 42 rounds.

I don't always agree with you Smokes, but I do here.

For all the talk, the Brough everyone rates as england's best never seems to turn up when I see the Giants, or indeed his other teams. I'm not saying it never happens, but...

If we'd have dominated up front and failed to capitalise, then I can see why you'd slag off the stand off, but that's not what happened.

Some one once said that if you do 90% of things 5% better than the oppostion, you'll have a lot more success than a team than can do 10% things 50% better.
That's why Australia beat us, becuase they were a little bit better at everything. A little bit stronger, a little bit faster, a little bit smarter and a little bit cooler under pressure. Had we had a few of the injured guys, we may have been able to muscle up more, but on the whole they're a better all round rugby nation than us.
Dropping a country's best players and replacing them with the 2nd best isn't the way to solve it, raising the bar of our alround rugby is. It's not a quick fix.

the only hudds player who is worth a shout is robinson and maybe crabtree. The rest like cudjoe and brough just don't seem right at that level.

i thought we really missed Robinson or Burrow from the bench.
Crabtree has also looked pretty good for england in the past

Sinfield is a good goal kicker average half back
Brough is a good goal kicker and a very good half back the giants forwards played poor towards the end of the season so you can't judge him on that. Same for robbo.
Chase is a good individual player but he is a rubbish team player
Widdop is a poorkicker but a good half back

Read into it what you want but

6 = Widdop
7 = Brough

Bench = no half back

Simple

This is nonsense - You say:
"Brough is good but played poor for the back half of the season. Sinfield is average".
... but Sinfield led his team to 2 finals and won one of them at the back half of the season.
So if form has anything to do with selection this is a no-brainer. Sinfield was the better half-back at the back half as it were.

Secondly,you dismiss Brough's poor finish by blaming his forwards, yet Sinfield played consistently well throughout the season in a team whose forwards underperformed for much of it.

My conclusion:
Eaton is a very good Giants fan, but an average and club-biased selector

He led as a captain but not as a player, just remind me how well Leeds and sundials started the season? Sinfield is nowhere near England standard. trust me mare I am a odd RL fan I put country before club.

Plenty of talk of this player or that is not good enough so should not be considered, but plenty if not all english halves have failed over a series time after time for yonks. All the time Brough was at Wakefield he was stand out. Once he settled at Hudds he was key to what they did, and did well when they beat Warrington in the play offs last year. For me Widdop and Brough have to be in the halves. Their skills seem to complement each other well and are worth a shot going forward.

Isn't brough an out an out 7? So why the comparison with sinfield?

And if anyone thinks Brough would have made any difference to the result on Saturday they are kidding themselves.

So basically he has steered his teams to....... Failure!

Hang on a minute.... Broughs dip in form was due to the Hudds pack been beaten up? Ok fair enough comment. What happened on Saturday again? Englands pack got demolished so what would Brough have done differently from club level?
When Englands pack was on form, vs New Zealand, Sinfield got man of the match hmmm.

Because they play similar roles in terms of organising and kicking?

He led as a player and as a captain, easily winning the Southstander Player of the season award. (not, you may note, the annual 'captain of the season' awards)

Brough's performances didn't even earn him a place in the top 2 for Giants player of the year(similarly voted for by fans)

Leeds started the season poorly..no one is disputing that. I suspect that having up to half the salary cap injured and a new coach with new methods and structures, along with virtually no planned pre-season, may have had more to do with this than Sinfield's individual performance.

Exactaly. Better halfs than bothe Sinfield and Brough have looked gash fir GB over the years (Long being one of the most recent examples) because our forwards haven't layed the platform. On the ocasions when the pack got the better of their opposite numbers (the game against NZ for example) the half backs have looked much better and so has the kicking game. Until we can produce a forward pack that can match the Aussies on a regular basis (England having the best pack in the world is a total myth) it won't matter who we have in the backs because they won't have the time or space to be effective.

Pretty well right.
The myth as you say that Englands pack is the best in the World has not been the reality for many years, (not sure when to be honest)
Which English players are better in their respective positions than.
Cam Smith
Sam Thaiday
Paul Gallen
Matt Scott
Even Luke Lewis, Watmough and Tony Williams

Sad but probably true. I think Sam Burgess would be the only English player who could get in to an Aussie 17. Ellis and Graham would be in the squad but neither (particulary Ellis) has ever really been able to look more than slightly above average in comparison to their Aussie counterparts.

You could argue that Ellis has looked well above average compared to his counterparts in the NRL, given his three successive Player of the Year Awards at Wests. Who knows how much better he might look at international level in a more dominant pack. (Having said that I wouldn't want to place him above their current second row internationals.)

Agreed.

Ellis is a better player than Burgess too. Burgess spends too much time on the injury lists, granted he's a huge talent and puts in some massive hits but I'd have ellis in my side before him.

Who else would West Tigers nominate?
They are the Hull FC of the NRL
Benji Marshall has been up there so often so a new face was needed.
It was Ellis or Heighington as the best of the rest.

Your argument might hold true for the first or second year, but if it's a question of needing new faces a third consecutive award would be pretty unlikely.
Having seen video of his performances (particularly 2009-10) Ellis looks every bit worth the accolades.