You know where Sinfield used to defend? There.

I think as much goes through the hooker as first receiver? Do you think passing from Dummy half is some super difficult and important skill? If so how did Falloon manage to have a 8 year career in the toughest league in the world doing it? Are we now pretending Segeyaro's passing from dummy half is wonderful? We ignoring the (4 is it now) forward passes. The pass on debut that win our own twenty that went to no-one?
if a hookers job is so prescriptive why did Daryl Clarke struggle in his first season at Wire? How did it take him so long to adjust to doing the same job?

If you were a running half, yes. If you werent....

No, I dont think Hall should play in the 2nd row. In fact the opposite, Im more than comfortable that he takes the ball in like a second rower. Years ago Hall would have been shoved in the pack because Wingers werent his build, wingers didnt take hit ups on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd carriers. That was a forwards job. That why people want to put him in the pack.

But we werent better with 'a 9' were we. We were far far poorer with 'a 9'. What we needed, and what we got, was a very very good player to replace what we lost in Sinfield. We got a very very good hooker. Which is brilliant. But you give us say Cherry-Evans instead, and we still see that uptick in form.

But he doesnt need to. There is no necessity for your hooker to bring any particular skill to the table other than what is lacking elsewhere.

Take Peter Wallace given as an example earlier, he is a halfback turned hooker and the point was made he is still expected to make 700 tackles a year. I accept that but my argument would be, if leeds bring in Peter Wallace, and put him in the halves does he suddenly forget how to tackle because there is a 6 or 7 on his back and not a 9? no of course not. Teams need to make about 350-400 takles per game, As long as you 350-400 tackles it doesnt matter where they come from.

Falloon played what 5 games? We were crap with Burrow as our week in week out 9. So much so that we had to go out and get a hooker. Not a halfback, a hooker. Yes he's a good player, but the impact Segeyaro has made is very much down to the position he plays, he's tightened middle defence up, and got the pack rolling forward.

To suggest he has replaced Kev is ludicrous, If that is the case why are we still clueless on the opposition line, and on the last tackle?

Now Cherry Evans would have improved us, and improved those areas, but our middle defense would still be crap and our forwards would struggle.

It is a necessity for a hooker to have good distribution from dummy half, not distribution in general (burrow is spotty at that too BTW) but from dummy half. If you ask any forward in any team in the world I would put money on them saying it's far easier to work of a hooker than it is someone who can fill in dummy half.

I just don't understand your first sentence, you seem to be admitting Robbie doesn't have the distribution skills at Dummy half, but saying that's fine if that is a skill someone else in the team has. Well if Burrow is at acting half all the time who and how are we filling that gap in the team?

If we take Segeyaro out of this team right now, we lose 30 ish tackles. Tackles that would be made in the middle of the pitch that have to be made up by the rest of the pack. All or starting forwards regularly make 30 plus tackles anyway, so where are the rest going to come from. You cant say a halfback, even one who can tackle because he doesn't stand in the middle of the pitch.

They have to be made by middle men, which increases stress in that area. Leading to more misses and even less control of the ruck. Surely you must understand that?

We're talking about the hooking role at Leeds. We have one specialist in the role (you know, a f*****g hooker), we need another. Rob Burrow could wear a mink coat, high heals and the number 69 on his back but his distribution from dummy half and his ability to run from that position without getting totally dominated would still be well below the standard required. But as long as he plays the role he has now, neither a proper half or a forward we will not have a balance to the team.
With Sinfield we had another player who could distribute and read the game from dummy half so when McD decided Burrow would be his bench option Burrow could come on and do his thing, picking his moment and defending wide (where I actually think he has been very, very good - it's where he should defend). But Kev is gone and our team is imbalanced and lacking quality in key areas. We need no other evidence than the evidence of his dummy half play this season, which has been desperately ordinary, leading to the club signing the guy this thread is named after. Now if Burrow was doing a good job then we didn't need Segeyaro or he'd be on the bench to spell Burrow. But that's not the case is it. That's not speculation, that's simple observable fact.

If there were good halves and good 9's available or coming through the academy then I would have shown Burrow the door. Thanked him for all he's contributed in a great career and replaced him with a good 7 and a backup 9. But there aren't any and we're stuck with an ageing Burrow who as my Mum would have said is "neither nowt nor summat" .

We were crap full stop

And again, our defence was that bad, we conceded only 99 points more than we did last year. Thats slightly over 4 points a game. We have scored 350 fewer points ove 15 points per game. Thats where our problem lay. We only conceded 40 points more than St Helens. But we didnt, go out and get a hooker because that solved our problem, we went and got a very good player who became available.

Now When i say Segeyaro replaced Sinfield i dont mean he is doing the job Sinfield did, I mean we lost a player from our creative spine and didnt really replace him. In fact, if anything, we lost another in Hardaker. Had we signed Cherry-Evans instead, our last tackle plays and creativity improve immeasurably, we score another 150-200 points and our defence performs as it did, we finish this season challenging the top 4.

I am unsure what relevance compariing points conceeed this year to a previous year has? most teams are crap this year, the attacking quality is abysmal. If points conceeded wasn't less I would see it has going back, but conceeding much more I see no excuses over.

One thing proven beyond doubt with this club this year, is just how important a role an out and out hooker is to a team. Relegation would have been our outcome without Segayaro's arrival.

Again, i can only point to what has actually happened. A team covering all three of lilley, McGuire and Burrow, over 23 rounds, conceded only 99points more than they did their treble winning year. This idea that three creative players, cannot be covered by the 13 over players in a squad just doesnt make sense ( i would also point out here that technically Burrow is a fantastic defender. Physicality is obviously a problem but he isnt a bad defender as such, probably better than McGuire or Lilley) Because defensively they have, and were.

But lets play your mental game. Take Segeyaro out of this team and lose 30 tackles. What do we do? Well you can move your centres inside. Kallum Watkins for instance has made nearly 600 tackles this year.

Now the criticism of this has been that this has taken away from Watkins offensive strengths, but its only 150 more than he made last year. A hundred more than Moon made last year. 130 more than he made in 2014 and 2013. Its only 50 more than moon made in 2013,

Lets go back a bit further and look at when we have had these great hookers defending the midde, 2004, Matt Diskin tops the tackle charts.2nd on that chart, Kevin Sinfield (playing primarily at standoff), 4th on that chart? Keith Senior, centre, 5th Danny Mcguire another half, 7th Chev Walker centre. 8th Rob Burrow. In a year we absolutely dominated, 4 of our top 8 tacklers were backs, plus Burrow. How can that be if certain players, playing in certain positions need to be the one to making those tackles?

Lets not kid ourselves, most teams were crap last year as well, the difference between the total amount of points scored last year and the amount scored this year is negligible (36)

It would seem, shall we say 'convenient' for us to be looking at conceding 99 more points as the problem, when we scored 350 points less.

You seem almost disappointed we have improved, its not long since you were banging on about how we were worse than Wakefield last year.

A couple of obvious flaws. Sinfield doesn't play for us anymore, are we saying any old HB can go defend at loose? Jordan Lilley perhaps? Even when Sinfield was still here you clearly couldn't ask him to defend in the middle every week at his age, one thing to do it in his 20's....mid 30's is another thing, no way would he last. Also what happens to your attack if one of your HB's has knackered himself out doing silly amounts of tackles against opposition forwards? Don't say it use to work because it didn't. When Sinfield was at loose we still had McGuire and Burrow along with Sinfield in the attacking line to share duties.....if Burrow was at DH that leaves McGuire with a knackered worn out Sinfield next to him.



If you want to look daft and like you've only started watching RL about a month ago by making out that the work and passing at dummy half isn't a skill and any old player could do it then so be it, those of us with common sense and knowledge of RL will disagree.

How many games has McGuire played this year btw? You make it sound like those three have been the 6,7,9 every week. The points against would've been much higher had it not been for the strong end to the season. 0 & 6 points conceded vs Salford and Wakey.....Falloon was back in the team, Segeyaro comes in and we concede only 15 & 16 against Hull and Wigan. When we beat Saints and Hull at home earlier in the year just 18 points both times.....Falloon started.

Your point about total points is flawed because most of our lowest conceded totals this year came when a proper hooker played and defended in the middle.

Guess who was starting hooker when we conceded 52 points vs Warrington and Cas and 56 vs Widnes......yes Mr Burrow.

No we are specifically, and had you been able to read properly you would be well aware) not saying that. Lilley is neither a good enough defender nor in offence right now.

THough i have to question how having Sinfield Mcguire and Burrow sharing those share those duties didnt work because Sinfield had McGuire and Burrow share those duties with him.

Just as a little stat that might be relevant, Kevin Sinfield was our top tackler every year of the threepeat. He has been a top 5 tackler in 10 of his last 12 seasons. The other two he was 6th and 8th. It did work ok.
I mean it is a skill that Beau Falloon did for 7 years in the NRL.

And didnt you tell me we went with Adam Cuthbertson as a hooker in the challenge cup final?

But numbers don't tell the whole story, although extra tackles for Watkins or whoever don't look like loads, it is the impact they have and the impact that can be seen by everyone when burrow plays large minutes at hooker.

In terms of the stats you've quoted they aren't really a direct comparison as subs were high then resulting in forwards doing less game time and therefore less tackles.

What it does show is that the guy you name at hooker is expected to tackle. It also shows that halves get targeted in defence a lot, and a lot of the time centres are the ones who spend time covering them. But everyone knows that.