First of all I just want to congratulate you on writing a damn fine argument defending Kevin Sinfield and the people including myself that praise him.

However I'm going to have to disagree that it's people like Fylde_Warrior that stop rugby league from progressing. The ill of our sport is the ability of the people involved to outcast anyone with a different opinion. By out-casting people we are becoming a poorer sport and the debates we have aren't as wealthy as they should be.

William Eve for example is an outcast on our very own Southstander because he mostly tries to outcast (it's part of rugby league culture so I can't really fault him) anything that Leeds Rhinos have done including Kevin Sinfield's current status as the best player in the world. If the only way we can defend Leeds Rhinos is by calling a user a troll then whats the point debating anymore? However to your credit you do better by going beyond name calling by coming up with fine arguments against what the likes of William/Fylde_Warrior has to say.

The biggest flaw in your whole argument is that you've allowed Warrington to be poor in the Grand Final but not allowed Leeds to be poor in what was in all due respect regular season games. If Ben Barba is allowed to be on the losing side in a final then surely the same accommodation can be made for Kevin Sinfield with the challenge cup final?

The impression I get from you is Kevin Sinfield would have to lead Leeds Rhinos to an unbeaten season in order to be crowned the best player in the world.

Lets not forget that Leeds Rhinos beat Wigan Warriors by an eleven point margin in the 2012 challenge cup semi final (something you unsurprisingly didn't bother to mention). If Sinfield being on the losing side in the Challenge Cup final alongside a [ian awful penalty against Hansen[/i in the SL Play Off Semi's against Wigan are deciding factors to why Kevin Sinfield isn't the best player in the world then your argument is very poor with too many holes in it.

Finally Kevin Sinfield will have this years best highlight reel if it was done properly. However if a Wigan fan was doing it in a bias way to make the likes of Ben Barba look better than King Kev then yes he wouldn't look like the best player in the world that he is.

In fact, most Warrington fans, whilst disappointed that the team wasn't at it's very best in the GF, acknowledge that it was Leeds' excellent defensive and tactical performance that stopped Wire performing to a great extent. Credit to Leeds for that, no special pleading here that we just had an off-day.

Absolutely spot on and this is the attitude IMO of most fans in the game when they team has lost in a major final.

I've not watched the full Grand Final again so forgive me if my memory is a bit fuzzy but I'm sure Kevin Sinfield made at least one game changing tackle in the grand final which stopped a try. Not too long after this tackle he went on to score a try himself. This is something that isn't included (it might not even exist!) in the highlight reels of the grand final and that's why bias highlight reels don't tell the full story. There's more to rugby league than elusive running and for once it's good that this has been recognized!

Of course the best ever Kevin Sinfield tackle was the one that sent Kyle Eastmond into touch instead of in for a try in the 2009 Super League grand final. Kyle was sensational in the Grand Final and if it wasn't for Kevin Sinfield then I've no reason to doubt that Saints would have won that day!

How do you define best? How do you measure it?

this hasnt been awarded for 3 good games, SL wasnt awarded on the basis of 3 good wins. Its complete nonsense to say it is, it smacks of sour grapes and comes across very childish. Leeds may have lost 11 regular season games and a CC final, they may have lost 1/3rd of their games, they may have only secured 5th place by means of superior points difference over Hull, the play-offs may have been against a blown out Wakefield, it may be only a decision that separated them and Wigan, and they may have only beaten a poor warrington in the final, but every team in SL would swap their season for Leeds, every side in SL wishes that they lifted that trophy instead of Sinfield, every club in the league set out to lift that trophy and every club in SL will readily admit that Leeds had a better season than them, that Leeds had the 'best' season in the league.

Again, how do you define best? Leeds set some very ambitious targets of lifting all three trophies, they won two and appeared in the final for the other, thats an unbelievable achievement. The aim of an RL player is to win competitions Sinfield is very effective at that. Anything else is irrelevant.
Barba's and Tomkins' 'genius' achieved very little, Sinfield's getting knocked out and a load of kicks achieved a hell of a lot more. You ask Tomkins or Barba which was more important their 'genius' or trophies. They will be pretty clear that a fancy run or a pretty try is scant consolation when you watch someone else lift the big trophies.

Harry Edgar started and built Open Rugby from virtually a bedroom fanzine and it was a trail blazer in a time of RL famine re publications. It had a true international zeal that attracted interest from global top RL media pros and some very impressive sponsorship for awards etc. League Publication bought it some years later and it has gone downhill since.

Whomever won the award it would have been tainted owing to the blatant rigging ogf the voting by League Publications.

The decision by League Publications to reduce the number of overseas judges who vote on the Golden Boot was wrong. The decision to reduce the number of overseas judges was apparently made because there were no key international games during 2012....Odd given that there was in the Southern hemisphere - AND League Publications then proceeded to argue England beating France and Wales was part of why Sinfield was chosen.

Hopefully you can see how farcical the voting process was

To compound the farce Sadler has refusined to publish any details of the voting panel, nevermind who voted for whom The reason for this was......

Some would say Sadler is right and that they concur. How odd then that football has no problem in disclosing such information. The selection panel are far more credible and rarely if ever one could argue get it wrong.

[urlhttp://www.fifa.com/mm/document/ballond'or/playeroftheyear(men)/01/98/07/84/fboawardmenplayer2012-bycountry.pdf[/url

A very suspect award who many people argue was unfairly awarded to Kevin Sinfield who is a model professional BUT not the worlds best RL player.

P.S Damo you cannot compare winning origin with winning SL playoff games

The award was for a single season and you want to go back to Kev's Sunday School Achievements.

However, yes I did mention a period of dominance becauser it is still continuing unbroken and gets harder and harder as NSW get more desparate to break it. It is a TRUE elite contest. Leeds have not achieved a period of continuous dominance. The last team in Britain to do that was Wigan back in the day. So in a second tier competition Sinfield has bombed in the Challenge Cup repeatedly, Leeds have gone backwards in the normal season with some shameful beatings along the way only to then win an end of season knock out competition (we used to call it the Premiership). If Kevin Sinfield was the worlds best player why does the club he lead happen to be so bad for 3/4 of the season in an increasingly mediocre SL competition. Kevin Sinfield, Sam Tomkins et al need to go to the NRL to be credible on a world level because like it or not the NRL is elite sport, SL is second tier.

The list of previous winners is a pretty good indicator.


Leeds didn't have a better 'season' than a few teams. They had a better play-off/grand final run.


By your logic every Leeds player should be awarded the Golden Boot. After all, they're effective at winning trophies.

Actually, winning competitions isn't a requirement of the Golden Boot, and it wasn't in 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1990 (no award 91-9icon_cool.gif 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010 or 2011. Winning competitions is pretty irrelevant where the Golden Boot is concerned.


Again, being the best player in the world is not dependent on team success or lifting trophies, or "achieving" anything apart from recognition. In fact most Golden Boot winners didn't play for the championship winning team that year.

The fact remains: Sinfield is not the most skilful, entertaining, fastest, biggest or strongest player, nor is he the best passer or a prolific try scorer. No, when people talk about Sinfield they talk of him as a captain, leader, lynchpin, playmaker, kicker, inspiration, etc. He was a key part of Leeds putting together a good play-off run, oh and the WCC and the occasional decent regular season win.

Model RL professional, yes. Best player in the world?

No, Damo, that's not the "biggest flaw". It's not a "flaw" at all. Barba gets plaudits for his consistently outstanding performances in 2012, regardless of winning competitions or not. Sinfield had a pretty average season and 3 good performances at the end of the year and somehow wins the Golden Boot.

FYI - the majority of Golden Boot winners have not been champions that year.


Nothing Kevin Sinfield could do would convince me he's the best player in the world. But he's not alone in that regard, most players in the world won't get close to being the best.


An eleven point margin is neither here nor there. And I didn't say losing the CC final was a deciding factor, but it was yet another loss for Leeds in 2012.


What have Wigan fans got to do with it? A Sinfield reel would contain lots of kicking, a few decent passes, a few tries, a few tackles, a lot of team talks and getting knocked out. Best in the world??

I'm in awe of what Harry Edgar achieved but the times of taking a fanzine from the bedroom to the world are long gone and things have changed whenever we like it or not. Personally I think that somethings have got worse and somethings have got better.

An example of something that has got better is rugby league probably employs more people than it ever has done in the games long history. But has this come at some expense?

An example of where it's got worse in rugby league is they hasn't been another Harry Edgar type person to rise from a website (the modern day bedroom?) to become globally acknowledged. RLFANS despite being the most popular rugby website on the internet has had a long history of stigmatization by professionals involved with the sport. Thankfully this stigma is slowly going away but it's still there in different guises. These professionals have their own agendas that at times it probably is at the expense of the game.

However whenever the golden boot votes were rigged or not I still believe that Kevin Sinfield deserves to win this award. I'm not going to repeat what I've already wrote in previous comments supporting Kevin Sinfield but I will get into a debate with you about other stuff.

I think it's a farce that Sadler refuses to publish the details of the voting panel. It's unfair that someone can nominate someone for a prestigious award and remain anonymous for it. One of the things that our sport is built on is character and Sadler wouldn't be able to sell his publications if it wasn't for the named characters who play rugby league. In future are players just going to be called number one and number two because of so called vitriolic criticism through social media?

I don't like where this anonymous agenda could lead. It just makes everything less transparent, more suspect and more dodgy when they don't need to be.

I agree you can't compare the Super League play offs to the State of Origin in the context you was comparing the two competitions. However I didn't do that - I compared the Super League Grand Final, WCC & Challenge Cup final to the State of Origin. Yes the State of Origin is more elite to these three finals but it's the best we can go with for now. Regardless of whatever side of the world Smith or Sinfield played on both would have had good years. We're never going to agree on this argument no matter how many angles we look at it from so it might be best to agree to disagree on this one.

Finally it's ridiculous that the internationals Sinfield was involved in with England was bough up as a reason why Kevin Sinfield deserved the award because it was IMO the poorest point of a pick of many good points that also make Kevin Sinfield IMO the best player of 2012.

Good background to Open Rugby / RLWorld here Damo en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_League_World Also here www.rugbyleagueoralhistory.co.uk ... ue-gazette Edgar is still around with his wife publishing a RL nostalgia mag www.rugbyleaguejournal.net/index.html Sad really that much of the progressive aspects of RL came from 1982 to 1990. Peter Deakin for example was an outstanding visionary www.rugbyleagueoralhistory.co.uk ... ue-gazette Even the hated by many Maurice Lindsay was instrumental in resurrecting the WCC that many Wigan haters now enjoy due to his efforts.

Good background to Open Rugby / RLWorld here Damo en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_League_World Also here www.rugbyleagueoralhistory.co.uk ... ue-gazette Edgar is still around with his wife publishing a RL nostalgia mag www.rugbyleaguejournal.net/index.html Sad really that much of the progressive aspects of RL came from 1982 to 1990. Peter Deakin for example was an outstanding visionary www.rugbyleagueoralhistory.co.uk ... ue-gazette Even the hated by many Maurice Lindsay was instrumental in resurrecting the WCC that many Wigan haters now enjoy due to his efforts.

Resort to hyperbole if you must but you know I only went back to the year Sinfield became captain of Leeds. This was in response to you strenghtening your argument with the quotes I mentioned previously and which you once again repeat below.


Yes Leeds dominance of winning the Super League isn't continious but winning 5 out of 6 in a 14 team salary cap competition I think holds up just as well as 7 from 7 in a 2 team competition were NSW can't exactly buy their way back into winning it.


Hardly credible when Melbourne only had to play the 3rd and 4th placed teams once during the regular season, i'm sure Leeds' win/loss record would've looked healthier too if they didn't have to travel away to Catalans or have Saints visiting.

- Melbourne won 20 games last year and won 1 trophy. Leeds won 25 games last year and won 2 trophies and made it to the final of another.

- Leeds' 2012 Regular Season record P27 W16 L11
Cameron Smith's State of Origin record P27 W17 L10

- As for knowing more about the voting, does it matter? Anything they reveal will be dismissed by those who don't agree with Sinfield winning it just like Darren Lockyer and Sam Burgess endorsements of Sinfield were as media-friendly brain-washing properganda.

I have absolutely no problem with people who like to present a different view, it's the style that some use that leads me to form my previously mentioned opinion. Constructive criticism is fine, clearly we have many problems within the sport but I also don't think everything to do with SL is rubbish as some seem to do.

Too many times in the last few years i've had friends or work colleagues who aren't really into RL who ask me about the latest events in Super League and when I try to be positive i'm met with a shocked look and a response of ''oh I know this other guy whose into his rugby too and he's just been saying how rubbish everything is nowadays''. Now i'm not suggesting people should be saying everything in the garden is rosy but then again not all is doom and gloom either.

It leads back to then the argument on 'what is rugby doing to attract new fans'. And people go on about market campaigns and big sponsorship deals, and yes the RFL have hardly excelled at this but neither have a lot of fans in one of the best forms of attracting new fans.....word of mouth from those who follow it. It comes to something when Eddie and Stevo get slated for trying to big-up the sport on air, it seems some would genuinely prefer them to come on air and say ''Welcome to Super League......it's sh#t, change the channel!''

Ok so what same thing does Andy Farrell and Anthony Minichiello have that Sinfield doesnt? What does Stacey Jones and Hugh McGahan have that Sinfield doesnt and how do we measure that?

Yes, at the defining points of the season Leeds were better and as such had a successful season as opposed to a decent mid-season run. THey had the better season.

Did you really need someone to explain to you that not everyone makes the same contribution to that success.
Winning competitions isnt a requirement, nobody said it was. Winning things is however a pretty clear and obvious indicator of who is the 'best'. Its the reason why we have competitions, in fact its the entire reason the game exists at a professional level.

If the Golden Boot is 'achieving recognition' and not a contribution towards the success of the team then i cant think of a player I have ever met who would want to win it. Most would find it quite insulting that someone thought they had set out to 'achieve recognition' and that their success is judged by that and not their contribution not the success of the team. In a team sport, you 'achieve recognition' by winning.

It strikes me as niave that you value these skills……. Above these skills.

Especially when the second set of skills have made such a huge contribution to actual success.
Yes he was part of Leeds winning Super League, the WCC and appearing in the Challenge Cup Final. It might also interest you to know that Leeds are the only club, under the current format, to win the WCC and the League in the same year, and last year was the 2nd time Kevin Sinfield led his team to that success. Maybe in your eyes he hasn't 'achieved recognition' but his achievements demand recognition.

Printer do you honestly think achievements in SL are comparable with achievements in the NRL/Origin ?

IMO it is akin to comparing the National Amateur League with SL

It wasn't Kevin Sinfields fault he was given the award. In some respects he was exploited / taken advantage of by a League Publications agenda. The GB was set up by Edgar who was / is a man of integrity. Are Sadler / Drake on a par with him or very different 'animals'? Perhaps when the plug was pulled on the award the decision was the right one.

If you are going to have such an award then do it properly. Football / ballon d'or shows how awards should be done and be meaningful.

Farrell carried an iffy Wigan team through the entire season and was excellent in the Tri-Nations (you know, a decent international challenge). He won Man of Steel and Golden Boot that year so he was doing something right. Minichiello was the pretty much the Slater of his day. He won the Harry Sunderland, Dally M full-back and Golden Boot that year so he was doing something right.


No, if you place their results from Feb-Nov alongside some other teams, they had a pretty average season. What they did do was have a better play-off and grand final run. A 'season' runs from February to October. They were not the best team during that period. They were the best team in the last few weeks.


So why mentioned winning competitions when Golden Boot winners haven't generally been champions during the year of their award?


Actually, YOU said "The aim of an RL player is to win competitions...Anything else is irrelevant."

That may be true, but we're talking about the Golden Boot. Let me put this clearly. The winner of the Golden Boot has not played for the champion side in the majority of years. That would seem to indicate that, contrary to what you've written, winning competitions is NOT an indicator of who is the best player in the world.


I didn't say they had "set out to achieve recognition". You're making things up.

But in pretty much all cases, the winners have led from the front, displaying outstanding skills, try scoring abiltiies, toughness, etc. And if you think even the most team-motivated player wouldn't love to win it, you're being very naive. Winning an individual award isn't be at the expense of your team as you seem to be hinting at.

Yes, it's a team sport, but the Golden Boot is an individual award.


Again, I didn't say that. Making things up again. But take a look at previous winners. Those skills are there in abundance and would appear to be fairly important.

The best player in the world would have a fair mix of all those assets. Sinfield falls short on pretty much all of the physical attributes and isn't the most skillful player by some distance. And he's never really impressed at international level (but he's not alone in that regard).


No-one said he didn't contribute or wasn't key to Leeds' success. Quite the opposite, in fact. But that's a long way from being 'the best in the world'.

Having outstanding leadership and kicking skills does not make you the best individual player in the world.


There you go again, making things up. I didn't say he didn't deserve recognition. In fact, if you paid attention you'd see I acknowledge his role and state very clearly he is deserving of the award - but as a lifetime achievement award. He's great at what he does, he's simply not "the best player in the world", and watching [isome [/iLeeds fans desperately trying to claim he is, is hilarious.



Go and watch "Best NRL Tries 2012" and tell me Kevin Sinfield putting up bombs, kicking conversions and giving team talks is a better individual player than Barba.

I find this thread really depressing it's so predictably partisan.

True KS is not the most gifted player ever to pick up the boot, but that's not the only criteria. KS is not my fave player but he has been a very good player for over 10 years in the second best RUGBY competition on the planet. A model pro and reliable and tough, he does what it says on the tin.

For all the above I do think he is a worthy winner - well done that man.

Now move on and enjoy your sport and take pride in a British winner and cut out all this pedantry nonsense.

Wow, this thread still going. People still trying to tell us that Sinfield is the best player in the world

Go and watch "How many championships Ben Barba has driven Canterbury to" and tell me how he's a better player than Sinfield. How does being the lynchpin, captain and driving force in a championship winning side [inot[/i make you a better individual player than someone who's just electric in open field running, a decent support player and not bad at defence?

I have no issue with anyone saying that Slater, Barba or Tomkins are more obviously entertaining players, of course they are, but that doesn't necessarily make them better. At Leeds Burrow, Watkins, Hardaker and McGuire are all more entertaining to watch than Sinfield, but does that make them better? Of course it doesn't.

Sinfield can't do what Ben Barba can do, no argument about that, but then Barba can't do what Sinfield can, and Sinfield just keeps winning championships, so I know who I value more highly. Anyone who can't see what Sinfield brings to the game - and why those less showy, less physical, more cerebral skills do make him one of the best players in the world - has blinkers on in my opinion.

So the best player in the world has to be in an incredibly successful team to even be consideresd. There was me thinking that success was down to the TEAM.

No, but to ignore the influence he has had in that success - and the skillset that that requires - just because it doesn't fit your blinkered definition of 'best' is ridiculous. Why can't 'the best' be a player who is very good at all physical aspects of the game without necessarily being the best at any (other than the very important kicking game which you so quickly deride) but whose mental and organisational side is clearly a class above most, if not all, of his peers?

Oh, and just to pick you up on your previous claim that I had somehow slagged Cameron Smith - I was merely observing that you'd bet on that QLD side to beat NSW even without him, such is the quality of their side, (would you bet on Leeds to beat Wigan or Warrington without Sinfield?) and that his Storm team was hardly ripped assunder, he was still surrounded by a wealth of world class talent like Cronk, Inglis and Slater. Any observation that he was involved in the worst cheating our sport has ever seen was based mostly on the fact that he was (actively if you read some reports) and that does dampen my view of him to a degree. Still, let's not let ugly facts get in the way of your crusade eh?

I can't believe that folk like you can't just accept it and be pleased for the bloke - how mean spirited can you get!

don't think it's him on the crusade old lad I reckon it's you.

So your definition of ‘best’ is ‘doing something right’. Kevin Sinfield captained his side to a World Club Challenge, Super League and a CC final, he won the Harry Sunderland award and Golden Boot, surely he ‘must be doing something right’.

Why would anyone look at the season in a different format to the one it actually runs under?

Because as i explained to you, we have a measure of quality. We have competitions, and their entire existence is to test and measure quality. Wigan were weighed, measured and and found wanting, Leeds quality shone through. So Leeds get a trophy and can call themselves the best team in the world for another season, Wigan dont. Kevin Sinfield was instrumental in that.

That is true. The aim of an RL player is to win competitions.
are you really, actually saying that competing against your peers isn’t an indicator of quality? Do you understand what a competition is? Do you understand what an indicator is?

No, you said thats what you needed to do win awards. Are these awards not won by effort, do people not try to win them? or are they just meaningless by products of a season?

No, but what you seem to be missing is that there is a clear and obvious aim for sport. That is to win. That is how we define best, by the winners. That’s why we have competitions. The whole point of sport is to measure the respective qualities of the participants. Its why you get ‘points’ its why we have trophies, the entire reason for sport existing is to find out who is the best. If you win a competition, you are by definition the best team in that competition. You can be the best passer, the best runner, the best try-scorer, the best every individual skill going, but if you cant put that together in a package which makes a signification contribution to success, then you aren’t the best player. Being a professional sportsman is about more than the individual skills needed to play that sport. If Kevin Sinfield, through nothing more than sheer force of will, be the main reason why his team are champions (again), then he is a better player than someone who has all the skill in the world but not the intangibles Sinfield does.

If an individual award isn’t reflective of a contribution to the overall success of the side, then in a team sport, the individual award is less than meaningless.
Yes, so the individual who i best, who is the one who contributes most to the teams success.
Sinfield is far better at many aspects of the game than Andy Farrell was, and certainly the Andy Farrell of 2004. There are things that Kevin Sinfield is better at than Greg Inglis

Sinfield has a range of skills, and some extra ones aswell.

Well thats why Kevin Sinfield didnt win the most skillful player award, nor did he win the best physical specimen award. He won the best player because his mix of skills is what wins games. Which is the point of the game.
Except it isnt, being integral to success is what defines 'best ' in sport.

If outstanding leadership and kicking skills are what separates the winners from the losers, thats exactly what it makes you .


you cant even tell us what 'best' is and further than 'doing something right' maybe you have a childs view of what makes the best and you think its 'most exciting', maybe you dont know the game very well and value 'moments of genius' far too highly. Maybe your naive and think if you rate each individually and add them all up like you were playing a computer game is how you define the best. I dont know, because you dont seem to. All we do know is you certainly dont think winning rugby games and being integral to the success of your team is what defines 'the best'.
If i thought Rugby League was all about scoring fancy tries, i might think the same as you. But as i know its not i have no reason to. You can score all the fancy tries you want, you can play the prettiest rugby possible, if you dont win, then you arent the best.

Ill not argue that Sifield is a more exciting player than Barba, ill not argue he is faster, a better runner, a better finisher, better to watch, scores better tries, I don’t think Sinfield is better than Barba at any of those things. But if the game was 26 Ben Barba’s playing, and it had no more depth than who scores the flashiest try, I probably wouldn’t bother watching it.

I am pleased for him in one respect, great pro, great ambassador for the sport and if this was an award for rugbly league sportsman of the year, i would say very well deserved. It's not that he's got an award it's just the wrong award. He didn't even make the super league dream team nevermind nominated for MOS, he isn't the best rugby league player in the world.