As I said, I wasn't specifically responding to you. If my view is the same as yours then we have no disagreement. So while I hadn't realised you were arguing the same thing (as I wasn't arguing with you anyway ) it 's nice to know we're on the same page.

A couple of notes on Sinfield:

It's easy to look back on the way his induction to senior grade panned out and assume a well laid plan. I for one though can't remember the circumstamces in which his chances came. Injuries may well have dictated their timing.

Secondly, in 2000 and 2001 the players he was trying to displace were not the cast and characters of the most successful period in the club's history. This is another of the many differences in historical context that mean the same model may be difficult to apply.

Also, Kevin Sinfield is a special player. You can't assume that what works for one works for all.

This isn't intended to dispute your ideal model, which I agree with, but just as a note of caution on the way that model might be applied in practice.

So by the time he is 19 he is a first team regular - not getting farmed out to a championship club?

Rugby League is a seventeen man game. Please do not say you are really going to scrape the barrel and make out substitute is not a regular? I expected much better.

So now we are clear he made two appearances out of the last three games in 1997. He made two appearances the year after where we challenged for the league and reached the first grand final. Then he was a first team regular the next season making 21 appearances (according to yourself, 22 according to other sites).

That is how to integrate a potential star. No need for championship rugby, and no need to wait until he outdoes the academy teams. This despite having the challenge of replacing arguably the best stand off of the super league era, and one of our best loose/back row ever.

Not even that. He was 18 when a regular.

He was also the exceptional talent of his generation.

Some players are ready much earlier than others. How old was Jamie Peacock when he became a regular at Bradford?

Not to mention that things have changed in the last 15 years. Players are far bigger, stronger and faster, and they tackle much harder. You might get away with a young half or winger playing each week but there's a reason why most forwards are older than they used to be.

I dread to think of how a 16 year old would manage at loose forward today.

Surely the integration of any young layer depends on ability, potential, physicality and opportunity.

Even if a players is ready for SL, how do you fully integrate them into a team full of international who are performin well. Opportunities will be limited, however, in this game there will always be oportunities through injury

Really, how so?

Sinfield year 1. 2 games.
Singleton year 1. 1 game

Sinfield Year 2. 2 games.
Singleton year 2. 1 game

Sinfield year 3, 21 games
Singleton Year 3 10 games and counting

1 is the player of his generation, playing as a half back, ball handling loose. The other is a prop.

I see no significant differences in how they have been handled. Factoring in that props are generally introduced at a slower pace because of their role I think Singleton has been progressed in a similar fashion to Sinfield.

Ahhh, so it is three years now, not the erroneous five.

Sinfield was 16, and was making 21 appearances at 18. Singleton is 20. Sinfield made all but 2 of those appearances in the forwards, the same as Singleton. Sinfield forced himself into a side that were winners, and had achieved something this side hasn't even managed yet, Singleton is picked for his 10 due to injuries.

Sorry but if you can't see the difference, your problem.

By the way, the point earlier about the fact Sinfield was an exceptional talent, completely accepted, so on that score unfair to compair the two above. I was just dissagreeing to the notion that they have been handled the same, because they haven't.

Are you sure Sinfield didn't get his opportunities through injuries? Genuine question, I can't remember.

Also, it might be a little stretched to claim that Sinfield's task in forcing his way into a team of winners was the same as Singleton's. Yes the 1999 vintage managed something this current team haven't managed, but it's also worth pointing out that this side has managed (6 times in 9 years) something the 1999 team hadn't.

Incidentally, having finished 3rd, Leeds 1999 vintage lost both their play-off matches and in so doing accomplished something this current crop haven't since 2006 in exiting at their earliest opportunity.

Incidentally, Kevin was on the bench for the first of those play-off games and not selected for the second. He also didn't play in the penultimate regular round at table-toppers Bradford. So while very much part of the first team squad, he was hardly first choice at that stage. His omission from the Murrayfield line up the following year, while it did raise eyebrows, wasn't the sort of thing that happens to an automatic pick.

What is three years? Hard to run a comparison of Singleton's first five years in the first team, as he's only had three.

One is a prop, the other a ball handling loose forward/half back. If you can't see the difference, your problem.


You think Sinfield played/plays the same role as Singleton?

Which side was that? Sinfield was eased in over a few years. He was eased into a team in real transition from the Murray years. Sinfield didn't win anything until 8 seasons after his debut.

The point was not to put down what this side has achieved, but highlight the fact that Sinfield forced himself into a team that had just won a trophy also. On the other hand, Singleton is only making his run of appearances this season, because of injuries to others. Not that I don't think Singleton should be in anyway, just stating the bloody obvious of what is really happening.

Therefore the comparison that Singleton is been handled the same as Sinfield was, is completely inaccrurate, and really stretching the truth.

I would still like to be more convinced that injuries didn't play a part in Sinfield's first sustained run in the team.

I don't have clear recollection of that period (largely because I was away at Uni for a chunk of the season) but my experience has been that I can recall very few youngsters being given a real shot without injuries to senior playetrs clearing the way. Without those injuries, it's generally been the odd game here and there, frequently including cup games and games against weaker opposition.

Mark Glanville was the loose that year and in his two years at Leeds made 46 appearances. Daryl Powell was stand off then, and I believe missed 3 games in 99, and in 2 of them Harris took over at stand off (although Sinfield only played at stand off twice that year anyway).

He didn't replace those players. They both still played in almost all of the 21 games Sinfield featured in. The question is what happened to the players whose places he took.