I loved B McD describing Andy Barker as the prince of darkness and he now dreads him coming into his office with yet more bad news. Nice bit of humour in the after-match press conference.

Thanks Gotcha, until I read your post I had been unaware of the sheer unrelenting wear and tear that a rugby player's thumb gets in comparison with, say, knees or shoulders.

It's a damn good job I'm here then. Just to help your likes.

Of course I obviously didn't manage to dumb it down enough, as you appear to have missed the important "fatigued" bit, and somehow come up with an idea that I was comparing injuries in some way.

No, I think I got the "fatigued" bit.
You're saying that because Sinfield's body in general was fatigued, that's why he broke his thumb.

You might have a reasonable point about resting players to prevent injury and I wouldn't disagree with that, over-training and over-use can lead to apparently unrelated injuries, as I found out for myself when I used to run a lot.

But Sinfield's thumb ?
Give over.

You're obviously not getting his point here.

Just to make it real simple - if you knacked you're more likely to break your thumb because... because... well you just are OK?

Last time I was fatigued both my thumbs fell off.

This is why it is imperative the hitch-hikers get plenty of sleep, otherwise you could end up just a nutter stood on the side of the road shaking your fist at passing traffic.

No I didn't. I said that that if a player is fatigued he is more likely to pick up injuries. I mentioned nothing about what type of injury.

Could a fully fit fresh player with no fatigue avoid the injury Sinfield received? yes he could. That doesn't mean that he definitely wouldn't have had it, it means that the injury would be more likely to happen as he was so fatigued.

His body couldn't possibly be in the same condition as what it would have been had he had rests in that previous three year period.

I take it you agree with the point, taking Sinfield out of it then?

It must be tough Gotcha, operating on a completely different plane of thought to us mere mortals.

One where your bones get so tired that they break

** Stretcher Boy ALERT!!! **

Much as its funny to laugh at Gotcha, and I think he is being a bit tenuous but I think the point he is trying to make is that when you are under fatigue your body takes shortcuts, and you're not able to execute each play they way you would do when fully fresh. I don't know how Sinny bust his thumb, but I've done it a few times and most often on other people's elbows when I've tackled them. Now when fresh I may have made a better contact, or at least got my arms around their back, but under fatigue you could see that I may only get them around the side and an elbow slams into them.

The fatigue doesn't make bone injuries happen, but it presents more opportunities for them to happen. No direct link but I can see that logically at least there is one

I can understand Gotcha's point in general, but Sinfield is playing a backs role. Backs don't tend to get rest unless they're injured.

Hall has currently paid 70 odd consecutive matches, I don't hear any calls for him to have a rest.

Hall gets enough rest down at the Bleached Hair Perfections & Fake Tan Salon.

McDermott used the squad in pretty much the same way last year and people were saying players looked fatigued yet we didn't ever pick up several injuries at once like we have now.....so how does this fatigue = injuries theory stick?

You won't be saying that when his left index finger spontaneously snaps on his way home from training tomorrow.