Re: England vs Samoa : Thu Nov 07, 2024 9:54 am  

NickyKiss wrote:

Sinfield was a bit of a victim of being moved around at Leeds between 6 and 13 and also for GB/England, between 6, 13 and also 9. I look at this current England team and he's Harry Smith and if he was slotted in around Williams, Clark, Radley etc, then he can control the team and kick us around the field. It almost feels like he was playing with the wrong number on his back during his career. He wasn't big enough to be a 13 and he wasn't quick enough or enough of a running threat to play at 6. He played at 7 in that World Cup and the perception started to change but he then misses that tackle and we forget everything else.

100% agree.

Re: England vs Samoa : Thu Nov 07, 2024 10:25 am  

His best games were at 9 and 7, positions he didn't really play at club level. Very unusual for that to happen. I remember Wally Lewis commenting very favourably about him after the first time he played at 9.

Re: England vs Samoa : Thu Nov 07, 2024 11:41 am  

I went through a few of his games for GB and in addition to being moved around the place, when he was played in the halves one time, he was paired with Paul Deacon! Talk about a lack of balance. They then played him at loose forward in a series against New Zealand but with a halfback pairing of Leon Pryce and Rob Burrow, so you then have a job on to control the side and kick us around the field when you're in the middle of the field and having to do a lot of donkey work in defence.

The game is different now but if you had the players of that time and was setting them up now, you'd probably have Leon Pryce at fullback, Rob Burrow at stand off, Sinfield at scrum half and then Lockers (or a Gaz Ellis/Sam Burgess) at loose foward and there is no way you'd pair Sinfield and Deacon at 6 and 7. I probably bagged Sinfield more than most at the time but looking back, he was left out to dry a bit.

Re: England vs Samoa : Thu Nov 07, 2024 12:24 pm  

NickyKiss wrote:

I went through a few of his games for GB and in addition to being moved around the place, when he was played in the halves one time, he was paired with Paul Deacon! Talk about a lack of balance. They then played him at loose forward in a series against New Zealand but with a halfback pairing of Leon Pryce and Rob Burrow, so you then have a job on to control the side and kick us around the field when you're in the middle of the field and having to do a lot of donkey work in defence.

The game is different now but if you had the players of that time and was setting them up now, you'd probably have Leon Pryce at fullback, Rob Burrow at stand off, Sinfield at scrum half and then Lockers (or a Gaz Ellis/Sam Burgess) at loose foward and there is no way you'd pair Sinfield and Deacon at 6 and 7. I probably bagged Sinfield more than most at the time but looking back, he was left out to dry a bit.

We’ve moved towards a half back and 5/8th model these days as 7 & 6.

Back then though we often had one half controlling one side of the field and one controlling the other basically a left side and right side half back.

In last 5 years generally we’ve moved away from that but these things are circular and I’m guessing within the next 10/15 years we will see it return.

In that old system Sinfield and Deacon could work, but I agree the way the game is played today they would pretty much cancel each other out.