Out of curiosity smokey do you think that tompkins will be a better player at his best than mguire is at his best?

not at all, have your opinion all you want, express it, its what this board is for

but when your opinion is based purely on petty pointscoring (as you have admitted) dont expect not to be called for being childish and petty

he certainly has the potential to be

Mcguire suffers from being sooooooo good at scoring tries for the first couple of years, he did the big spectacular things fantastically and as is normal, some cant get enough of shooting him down,

He has matured, and has matured into a very good, more complete stand off, he has imposed him self on a leeds team he was previously peripheral in

Mcguire still has some improvement to go, but he has been, for a long time, a fantastic player

Tomkins could very well go on to have a very good career, a very successful career and still not be as good as Mcguire, within a year, he will have the same problem as Mcguire, People will build him up and up and up just to shoot him down until people get into entrenched positions and ignore everything thats actually happening and just look for proof of their prejudice.

Lets see where he is in two or three years, I think he has massive potential, but i think he has a massive way to go to reach it

Fair enough, i not sure i agree with all of that, but at least its well reasoned. I do think yourself and a few others need to realise that if someone does criticise a player from your team it can be because he has done something wrong and not becuase of who he plays for. we all know that mguire can be a very good player at times but that doesnt mean he is all the time. Personally i think that if he was at somewhere like salford he wouldnt be raved about all that much, but i'm sure you would disagree with that, as you see more of him than me and can see the little things that he does at leeds that others dont notice, however we are now looking at his performances at international level where what you do at club level doesnt matter and he has been found wanting so far. I dont thinks thats all his fault though if we had selected a proper scrum half with a good kicking game such as long or brough then whoever played at 6 would have been able to do more in attack and have less defending to do.

Personally i think that tompkins will overtake mguire as a player as he has that instinctive quality that you can coach against. And trust me have no love for wigan or leeds so bias doesnt come into it, i'm just calling it as i see it.

im not criticising people for criticising Mcguire, i think he was poor,

what im criticising is the glee and exaggeration that is involved because its Danny Mcguire.

What you have put here is right, the fact we have gone into a major championship with no scrum half is ridiculous,

its comments like Tomkins is already better than Mcguire, or that performance should finish him at this level blah blah blah, which are clearly an idiotic over-reaction to one game that im criticising

and as I said, i dont disagree, Tomkins has the potential to be a better player than Mcguire, but he is miles away from fulfilling it as of right now

Good post.

McGuires average at best and has'nt developed into half the player he promised to be. He'd hold a spot down at any SL Club but at anywhere other than Leeds, Sts or Wigan he would be pretty obscure.

This time next year Steffan Ratchford will be a better stand off than McGuire can now hope to be.

This is the kind of rubbish Smokey was talking about.

Well you and Smokey may think it's rubbish and thats an opinion you're entitled to.

My opinion differs.

As a Quins supporter I couldnt give a monkeys where our players come from. I just want the best out there and imo MCGuire is the best support player in the country. However, his passing at times is woefull as it was in this game. Eastmond seemed able to throw a pass with great accuracy and in true Saints traditon can catch it as well. McGuire is not rubbish and to call him so is ridiculous. He is a beeter support player than either Eastmond or Tomkins but his ball skills are not as good. He is the Ian Wright of RL if you like. Because of his experience the coach may perservere with him against the Kiwis but in the long run he knows these two are breathing down his neck. If he plays, I hope he remembers its a team game and doesnt stop passing to the other two.

History tells us you are wrong

and anybody who watches him regularly will tell us you are wrong,

and anybody who knows RL will tell us you are wrong

Tomkins is 20 and in his first SL season, McGuire is 26/27 and been a member of numerous championship winning squads.

McGuire should be able to impose himself on a game more than Tomkins, he didn't.

Leave it, he is trying to defend the indefendable.

History tells us that John Holmes was a great stand off as was David Topliss, Tony Myler, John Woods etc. and McGuire isn't fit to lace their boots. He has nowhere near the level of skill nor their outstanding attributes.

Please don't quote medals and rings at me as they are team accolades and really mean nothing when judging an individual. Garry Schoffield was an infinitely better player than McGuire and he hasn’t got a medal to his name.

Those who watch him regularly! Do you mean Rhino's fans? Not exactly the most impartial judges. I've seen enough of McGuire over the last few years to make an informed judgement.

Believe me I know rugby league!
I am well qualified to form an opinion and it's as valid and perhaps better informed than most.

I've just watched the replay and McGuire was even worse then on live viewing.

I wanted him in the side before the comp started but he can't be defended after yesterday. He was woeful and will rightfully lose his place next week(if Smith has half a brain).

I thought it was a joke that Briscoe got made a scapegoat for Smith and McGuire. He never had a chance on that wing with them two clowns defending inside him.

Smith played better when moved to the wing, but what sort of message does it send to the team?

McGuire was just woeful. I can't think of a single thing that he did that was even average. Defence - shocking. Passing - shocking. Kicking - shocking.

I agree with people about Roby at hooker as well. But who else is there?

Eastmond to centre. Myler to 7. Tomkins to 6. McGuire to bench. Smith on the wing? Well, I wouldn't have even picked him for the series, but looks like he's gonna get that spot next week.

I'd play Sinfield at 9 for the next game, thought his dummy half distribution in the 2nd half was pretty good, and it could also give him more space to take a kicking option like Cam Smith does so well.

Swap Roby and Sinfield round imo.

9-Sinfield
13-Roby

suits both players games at this level imo.

McGuire is only 1/3 of a player. He works with the other 2/3s in the Leeds setup (those being Sinfield and Burrow).

By contrast, although neither Tomkins nor Eastmund are yet the complete article, they don't rely on having others around them in order to shine. Both have thier own games which in their own ways are quite unique to them.

Hm. Seem to remember McGuire single-handedly cause NZ all sorts of problems last year when the rest of the side was Keystone Cops.

IMO his problem isn't lack of ability, it's lack of composure (he panics like crazy early when playing for England) and the fact that he has reached the age he has without being the main playmaker, and required to bring structure to the side. His weaknesses are exactly the sort of things that would have been fixed if he'd gone to the NRL. As it is, it's probably time to move on. Sadly, you can see the same thing happening to Tomkins, Myler et al over time as well.

I see no point at all in picking Lee Smith. He'll never be a centre, and whilst he may be slightly better than Fox/Briscoe, I'd rather see one of them get the nod against NZ.

Was thinking along similar lines myself, at club level sinfield does a hell of a lot of the work that the halfs do, which means that mguire and to an extent burrow dont develop certain parts of there game as much as other half backs (i.e. kicking well consistantly). The triangle of burrow, sinfield and mguire works very well at club level but for whatever reason that doesnt transfer to international level.

TBH I think when you watch the way they play for England you should pick all three or none of them - albeit Sinfield has just shown he could be the best hooker England have.

Why not Rob Burrow, I mean he's an inch shorter?

I agree. I watched it again and Lee Smith was way better than him. Mc Guire was a disgrace.

he was rubbish, you cant gloss over it. even leeds fans must see how bad he was.