Just been reading some of the comments on the Cas board about him.
Sounded like was outstanding for you guys yesterday.
Was just wondering what people's opinions of him are.Good enough for super league etc..

I've always rated old Blacky but some guys on here (most notably Andy Boy who's conspicuous by his recent absence) doubted his re-signing. Great player, best half back we've had since the great Michael Hagan. Am I right? I'm not wrong!

Good but only Half as good as Clinche. In the modern game.

His passing game is poor at times, his running game awsome

Totaly different players

Quite a few people on here were sceptical about Ben being brought back to the club wrongly stating that he went "missing" in big games.Their evidence for this was always the 2005 play off semi final defeat at Cas when he was targetted by the Cas pack who were fully aware of his ability as he was instrumental in knocking them out of the challenge cup that season meaning that his man of the match award yesterday is in fact his second against Cas in that competition.
Whether he could play regularly in SL is debateable but his fellow Aussie from the 2005 team Ben Fisher is probably a good comparison.
With regard to Clinch I wouldn't have minded seeing them paired up at half back.

If you compare any two players they are going to be different. The thread was half backs.

The thread is Ben Black.

Clinch "the pinch" was a half-back!

He retired to (supposedly) take up coaching from Salford in 2004, but I can't find anything about him after then...?

He was a totally different player to Black - more of a ball player than a runner, and his ball steals were awesome (hence the nickname!).

I was replying to this post which states that he thinks that "Ben is the best HALF BACK since Hagen ".I said that he is only half as good as Clinch who may be a "differant player" but was non the less still a half back.
Clinch by the way is back in Oz and coaching.

agree he does make a mess sometimes with his passes but as you say his running game more than makes up for it.

No, they weren't. And he did.

he didn't have the players around him in his first spell to share the workload with, if Ben didn't perform then everybody thought he was missing. Now if he has a quiet games there plenty of other players who step up.

I remember fax having 4 "big games" in 2004 - three play off games and the cup game. Black didnt perform in ONE of those four games, due to Castleford's tactics.

So that would disqualify your evaluation.