really?
whenever i've seen him play, granted only on TV i can't say he's done anything to impress me, although he did put a nice kick in for a try on friday.

Tomkins and Widdop with Hardaker at one.

Back up to be provided by Smith and Ratchford.

Smith is like Deacon without the kicking ability. He looks great in a dominant team but is completely uncreative. 3 steps with the ball then an exaggerated pass along the line. No pace, cant support a break, doesn't commit a defender, crap tackler. He'd be better as your second hooker, rather than the one with famous brothers, except he can't tackle. Against Aus & NZ we need much more than mediocre.

I think he's got the tools to do a good job. Up to him how he uses them, but seems to read a game well and has nice hands and a decent kicking game when he gets the chance.

I'd be interested to see him without Matty Smith in the side, where he can take control a bit more.

From memory only Williams & Manfredi impressed me.

not going to happen though i dont think

id like to see ratchford in the halves but he doesnt play there enough for warrington nevermind getting called up to play for England in that position

tomkins also doesnt play enough in that position

so you have to stick with widdop and smith

I like Danny McGuire. I think of all the halves mentioned he, more than any other (including the much vaunted Danny Brough), has the ability to genuinely play with his head up and quickly assess what's in front him , something that the likes of Matty Smith seem unable to get the hang of.

Chances at international level are few and far between, so we need someone to notice them when they come up.

I think both this year and last he's looked sharper and better than for several years. For a while I don't think he's been playing well enough for an England call up but this year, if he carries on like he's started, his name should at least be in the mix.

McGuire is slow, though, and never seems to be fully fit. I'd have Brough over him in a heart-beat. Not that that's going to happen.

But isn't that the problem Bull Mania is referring to? Halves being brought through, but not given a chance and ultimately offloaded or moved to full back.

They had every chance at Saints. The lomaskell combo was supposed to be the next great combo for Saints, and both had multiple seasons to claim the position as their own. But they didn't, and Saints had no choice but to find replacements. To blame Saints strategy on the matter would completely ignore the fact we have players coming through in other positions and claiming regular first team rugby.

If Saints aren't giving kids a chance, God knows what you'd say about other teams!

Can't argue with that to be fair.

Do you feel Ellis could've got more of a chance? Genuine question, because I can't remember who your halves were when he signed for Cas after the dual reg year at Leigh. Ironically, might have been Lomax and Gaskell. Just wonder whether Ellis and Lomax would've been a better combo.

Ellis had off field issues which was always going to impede his progress at Saints, or at least keep him lower in the pecking order than he perhaps should of been. Gaskell was Ellis' replacement, Eastmond and Pryce were the incumbents at the time iirc.

There's a lot of ifs and buts from Saints in terms of producing halfbacks. If Eastmond had made his long term plans clearer, Smith wouldn't of been let go is the classic example, in fact I think a Smith/ Eastmond combo now would work very well now, at both club and international level.

is chase not in the mix again?? been in good form so far

but i suppose he has had his chance

upto macnamara but some peoples faces dont fit.. i.e Brough

The big problem with developing young half backs, in my opinion, is the jump from u19's to SL. If we're not going to have feeder clubs or their equivalent then it'll take a longer time to develop young halves as they need exposure to open age play without the pressure of playing in SL.

The way the game's coached no longer favours the development of playmakers IMO. Once over, you'd get a young gobe of a player who effectively changed the way those around him played. Put his own stamp on matters, if you like. Too much control freakery going on with the coaches for that to happen now. And fans buy into it: often as not, if their team's failing to score enough, they're calling for attack coaches when what they should be calling for is for their halves to be given freer reign.

I'm not sure what your involvement in coaching is, but my experience is the opposite. Coaching and training is much more about mini games to teach players to play what's in front of them, rather than the historical approach of drills that run to set patterns.

I'll come clean here, I've no involvement with coaching whatsoever. As stated, my comments were opinion only and could well be incorrect. I gather you are a coach, so here's a couple of questions: is our apparent failure to produce decent halves in recent times a hangover from when drills/set patterns were in vogue?
Can we expect matters to improve under the mini game approach? If so, how long before the improvements become apparent?

I coached seriously (dabbled with a bit here and there) from 2007 until 2013, and have resisted the temptation to lose large amounts of time, so far, since arriving in SA



If I think about how coaching changed over the years, it's a lot. I'm 43, through school and my 20s, coaching consisted of little more than "run harder, tackle harder" with a little safety stuff in tackling, and the occasional "trick" of a team move or something. There was very little in individual technique. Lots of drills to practice skills, but it you had poor technique, you would just get better at that poor technique.
Since then, it's moved to real focus on individual skills, and learning those through mini games. Probably 2009 for it to get to me in Midlands RL. I remember hearing about how Spanish soccer made the change to training kids through lots of short sided, 3-7 a side mini games. We started coaching that way: technique instruction, mini-game to practice, break and question, mini-game, etc. It takes a long time to come through though to open age though. I was coaching U16s but it's almost too late by then. It's the ten year olds that matter, and so 12 years to come through. Remember though, our rivals are following the same approach.

This. Also unfortunately there are many many coaches in the amateur game who still go by the principles of run harder and tackle harder and pass it to the big kid. They ignore the overtures from the RFL, Coach Ed, etc to go down the route of small sided games and still do drills they've copied from SL teams.

I've seen an u10's team do fitness training. Basically doing shuttle runs and dropping to the ground when the coach blows the whistle. An u10's team. It's f***ing ridiculous.

Leon Pryce alongside Widdop

Pryce will never play internationally again, but he's played well this year. Mickey Paea aside he's been Hull best player so far by quite a distance (not that big a feat though tbf).

This again; the fundamental problem is that the community game is pretty much the Wild West, with a load of Dad's wielding their coaching badges like a Sherrif's star, 'coaching' kids in ways that would cause many people to shake their heads in disbelief. There is far too little control, guidance, or setting of standards from the governing body; junior league officials are next to useless; and most clubs, due to lack of resources, are just relieved to find somebody, anybody, who will take on the coaching of a junior team. I'm sure some are well meaning, as I'm equally sure that some are downright horrible, but the standard of coaching in the community game is, as a rule, appalling - with some exceptions.

It all changes when you get to U15 of course - when you start to notice men in SL club badge emblazoned coats watching your matches from a discrete distance, making notes on a clipboard, and singling out the parents of promising young players in the car park afterwards; have enough of those promising youngsters, and suddenly you have SL players turning up to train with the kids, coaching sessions held at the SL club, or your coach being offered some role in the junior set-up at the SL club, on the understanding that he brings certain lads with him...

It's a mess, and it won't get any better until the RFL take the community game seriously and start supporting the jr clubs so that they a) do a much better job for the young people they purport to be bringing into the game and b) face sanctions if they don't use that support to behave appropriately.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't the community game still under BARLA not the rfl?

Broadly speaking and excluding one or two genuine freak players I think any deficiencies in SL half backs' playmaking (or ball handling) abilities are relatively small. I think SL coaches right up from the juniors have gone a long way toward addressing the kind of problems which created scrum halves of the ilk of Andy Gregory who had to turn his back to pass the wrong way. Where we are seriously falling down is in the kicking department. But these issues are a product of inconsistent defensive capacities spread throughout SL before coaching per se.

Consider a top-tier scrum half taking the ball at first receiver on tackle three inside his own half of the field and outside the 20.

Does he:

a) Pass - knowing that his superior stand-off/centre combination pitted against a hopelessly inferior defence will likely yield anywhere between 10-20 yards on the play (perhaps more!) in a relatively safe option.

or

b) Kick - knowing that even if he manages not to kick it clean out on the full or down the throat of an onrushing fullback (who returns the ball to the half way mark) variables completely outside of his control (such as wind, an unlucky bounce etc.) may render even a technically well-executed kick a fail.

Direct observation suggests that most of the top scrum halves would much prefer option a). The problem is - by continually choosing option a) they further degrade their ability to execute option b). In effect, it's a feedback loop. Each successfully executed 3rd tackle passing play further undermines the scrum half's facility for executing a successful 3rd tackle kicking play.

All scrum halves perform this kind of mental risk-evaluation each tackle. But in Australia, where the talent pool is far more evenly spread, the decision to pass or kick isn't a foregone conclusion. Kicking on third tackle is an often-executed tactic. And because it is so - their scrum halves continue to get better. Practice makes perfect. The feedback loop is in a positive rather than a negative direction.