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.

How sad is that.

He is too slow to ever be a good hooker and is too predictable as a result. Teams know that he hasnt got the speed so will know that he is going to pass every time. Even when there were gaping gaps, as on Saturday, he was just too slow to get through them.

It's true though -Sinfield was far better than Roby at 9.

Personally I would have Diskin starting at 9 but thought that Sinfield really found his place in teh England set up at 9.

When he was playing at 13 he semed to stifle teh attack, at 9 he gave a few options from dummy half.

Riiiighhht - so the reason England looked so much better with Sinfield at 9 was?

That lack of speed was enough to drag both markers out of the way for the Burgess try, or were you too busy hurling abuse at every other Leeds player on the field (or ramming a pie into your face) to see that?

It's not just Leeds players, in fact I can't say I've seen much if any positive posting from this person.

Of course he will.....he plays for Leeds!! Amazing how when they aren't in their so called "super team" they aren't so good. I really wish we'd just evaluate a player on their individual skill other than just because they're surrounded by class in a club team and also playing the big matches.

I agree Tomkins was good...should be the half back we build our future teams around now.

Mcguire will play again. He tried things in attack and they didn't come off, it happens.

As for defence, i've mentioned it in another thread somewhere, there was consistently 5 on 3 down our right because of poor push from the middle and he got isolated as did Smith and Briscoe.

8 tackles, 5 missed tackles of mcguire says it all.

Mcguire was pants he couldnt handle a one on one tackle, Inglis weighs twice as much as the sour faced pouting pretentious slacker and showed him his heels all the time the lad is great in his dominant leeds side but is found out wanting against quality, get over yourselves and just accept he had a utter shocker, and will again against a side that attack and dont give him a breath in defence...

What tosh. I have been positive about Crabtree, defended Tom Briscoe, praised Eastmond and said that Tomkins played well in the second half. These are the main threads on here and hence the ones that I have commented on. For what its worth Ellis, Burgess, S Briscoe all played well and Hall and Shenton were solid down the left and if there were threads on these players I would have said this too on their threads.

I happen to think that Tomkins went missing in the first half and that Maguire, Sinfield and Smith are not international class. I couldnt really care less if Wigan and Leeds fans dont like this and dont like criticism of their players. Fans of some clubs really need to take the blinkers off when it comes to England.

And you need to learn to stop thinking your gut feelings are just automatically correct. Your Tomkins going missing statement for example, watch the game again, then watch it again, then watch it again (I have) - he bloody clearly is staying on the left in formation presumedly because he'd been told to stay there by the coach. McGuire on the other hand didn't 'go missing' at all in the first half, what he did do was try and be involved in every single thing and leave the worlds biggest gap on his side of the field. Yes Sam looked nervous and hesitant for a while, but really you know bugger all about rugby league if you think a player can just decide to get involved in positions opposite the side of the field his coach has told him to cover (clearly it was split halves and not a traditional 7 & 6 setup) without causing all sorts of problems. By your definition Michael Shenton and Ryan Hall went missing in the first half as well, and it had nothing at all to do with the fact we were taking almost everything (bar the odd hit up to Graham) up the right hand side.

Amen brother.

I'm sure you're reading my scripts.

But is still better than gardner get used to it

And i'm not even slating Danny McGuire either, I like the guy and think he's a good player - i'm slating his performance, but I genuinely think it was down to trying too hard rather than lack of effort, he was trying to be everywhere in attack and thus left us glaringly exposed in defence and with no real shape. He's a far far better player than his performance on Saturday.

I dont think anyone has,

Some have just been intelligent enough to understand that one performance isnt representative of Mcguires abilities, he has and will play much better

so who are the class players surrounding Mcguire, Sinfield, JJB, Burrow, Diskin, Smith, Senior, Bailey, Ablett, Hall making them look good?

Id be really interested to find who has been carrying the 6, 7, 9, and 13 for the best team in the country for the last 5 years?