I'd hardly say they were ''terrible''. But if they were in your opinion the rating should be lower than 4 as 4 is just below average.

Hate to be pedantic but I shall be. Way back in my youth when I got my PhD I studied a lot of cr*p. Here's a useless fact - there's absolutely no point in giving people a scale of 1-10 to mark anything on. The vast majority of people will use a maximum range of 7 for some reason - so on a score of 1-10, 4 is pretty much the same as 1.

Anyway, FWIW I wouldn't be worrying about individual player ratrings - how many points have Leeds conceded in the last 3 games - close to 90? That's shoddy defence and they can do a heck of a lot better than that. And that's down to the TEAM, not individuals.

And here is his useless fact

I love getting those phone calls that start "on a score of 1-10 where 1 is crap...etc etc etc", I rate every single one as a 10 just to make the company feel good, and complacent.

I took such a call on Monday from a software support company that we used two weeks earlier, during the support call they told us that our problem was because we weren't on the very latest version but because our software was heavily customised they hadn't sent the upgrade out to us but would be making a visit at some point in time between now and doomsday, sort of - it really was that vague - and we pay these people a lot of money for support.

So crap service eh ?

I gave a 10 to every question that the girl asked.

If that company is so complacent to rate their customer service on the strength of a stupid call centre rating system then they deserve to wallow in their own praise

Ooh, backtobacktoback pull your bottom lip in, it'll be alright.

My point that the norm for average on this scale is a 6. And hence why I said surely any player making 40 tackles in a game should be given at least an average mark.

It is pretty obvious - Sinfield is only Leeds forward who defends in the middle who regularly plays 80 minutes. The combined figure for Diskin and Buderus on Saturday - 53 whilst they did play some of the game together it does show the potential of a player defending in the middle playing 80 minutes. 40 doesn't sound spectacular when you compare to the 55-65 that Hindmarsh makes regularly in a much more intense league?

But it's not that simple is it.

Take the games when Sinfield was missing.

Huddersfield away. JJB at 13, 20 tackles made and 2 misses.
Hull KR home, JJB at 13, 28 tackles made and 1 miss.
Wigan away, JJB at 13, 27 tackles made and 5 misses.

It's irrelevant what Hindmarsh does in the NRL. It's what Leeds players do that is relevant. The stats on the other page show the only player who is continually in high tackles made at Leeds, regardless of who is in that position.

Had you took Sinfield out of the lineup at Saints, nobody at the club would have filled that defensive gap. Saints would IMO have had more points.

Did JJB play for the full 80 minutes in them games? Sinfield is probably one of the higher earners at Leeds, for thatreason his expected performance is higher than other, he also puts his hand up to be a playmaker, a kicker captain and do an 80 minutes slot at loose forward. This, whilst making him an exceptional player in the Leeds team means that he has to do a lot more than others to get an average score . His average performance may be better on the whole than other players good performance but in the context of the tasks he takes on it may be still average. For this he suffers but at the end of the day I doubt he's too worried about whether he was given a 5 or a 6 on an internet forum.

I disagree with that, the team would absorb those tackles as one, although more may have been missed.

What sinfield brings us is the ability to regularly top the tackle count, and be as reliable in minute 1 as minute 80 with it. Not something many people can say.

Once he's finished defending, he's hurting the opposition with ball in hand.

You know what, that reminds me of my son's football team, and it really pishes me off.

His team have finished 2nd in the league this year scoring 76 goals along the way.

My son's best mate has scored 38 of the goals setting up 11 for others, and my son has scored 28 of the goals and set up 29 of the others. Take those two out of the side and the team would not have won a single game, as most of the parents accept.

Yet when my son or his mate have an off day, you hear people having a grumble. Their off day is still 10 times the performance of their team mates. But still people grumble.

They also grumble when their sons don't get games yet my son and his mate play every game.

My argument has always been that you don't penalise your best players just because the rest are way behind. It is up to team mates to aspire to be as good as that other player, and prove that when given a chance.

Why did the '05 cup final jump into my mind when reading that.

Because he was awarded the Lance Todd for his performance?

Yep, maybe because it was so un-Sinfield like and just happened to be cup losing missed tackled.

I'm a massive Sinfield fan and he's made up for that miss 100 times over it just came into my head when he said it.