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?

I dont think you can reasonably say that leeds have been the best team in the country for 5 years, in that time they havent even won the majority of the trophis, and some years havent won any trophies. The saints team of 2006 was the best team i have seen in the sl era.

Wouldn,t say they were the best team in 2008 either.

Leeds have won 3 of 5 grand finals (the only trophy which really matters), appearing in the other one, they have been the best team

Thats your opinion smokey and i'm not getting into this again, but at the end of the day all i will say is the best team of the last 5 years in my opinion would be the one that won most trophies and appeared in most finals.

yeah, cos all trophies are worth the same

christ, the challenge cup was never even meant to decide the best team in the country

They have as much value as fans decide they are worth, there is no set value smokey. As it happens i think the cup is a more important trophy as that is a harder trophy to win for me, and i think the league leaders shield is worth more than that as it is harder to win. Some would agree with me, some would disagree, i dont really care, i know which would matter more to me if my team won it. Dont think that i have anything aganst leeds by saying that i said the same when bradford were winning everything too and they are one of the teams i love (or at least i did before SOME of there fans became cocks) .

The point i'm making is that saints have always either been best or second best in all the trophies in the last 5 years, leeds havent always managed to get upto that level. They (saints) have consitantly been up there and have won the most trophies, for me that makes them the best team. You may disagree, niether of us are wrong or right, since the trophies have no set value it doesnt matter, they are worth as much as rl fans value them.

That would be the one where Sinfield threw a pass straight into the hands of an Aussie player. No club bias there then. And in case you're wondering, or for some bizzare reason fail to see the relevance, that means he wouldn't/couldn't go for it because it was a shocking pass that was nowhere near him.

I'm willing to give McGuire a break for the time being (mainly because he's young), but he has to start producing - BIG TIME - for England soon. If he doesn't we should get rid and give one of our other promising youngsters a chance.

Right now he looks two yards short of pace and his support play is a shadow of what it was even in his debut season.

He's 27 next month and he's been playing for Great Britain since 2004 (England A in 2003). Hardly young or inexperienced at this level, he just doesn't produce the goods enough and with Tomkins, Eastmond and Myler all in better form I would give him the elbow for Saturday.