Reg Bowden

that person hasn't been born yet who dominated every game he played in and you can go back to the beginning of time,but below are some great half backs of the last 50 years who dominated a great % of the games they played in:-
andy gregory,shaun edwards,alan hardisty,roger millward,,dave topliss,lewis jones,ellery hanley,alan hepworth,alex murphy,steve nash,barry seabourne,jonathan davis,david watkins,john woods,nigel stephenson,paul harkin,tommy smales.......

I could go on.Britain has produced some GREATS,that's for sure.

All great players madas and of course you are right nobody can dominate every single game they play in, in any sport.

Also you cannot dominate behind a beaten pack,so you would need other people to be on top of their game to enable you to be on top of your game

Welcome to the forum Reg.

Great half backs can shine behind a beaten pack. Mediocre ones can't. I suppose it depends on the extent of beaten, in reality.

Re Brough--no argument from me there as I rate him very highly and have seen him grow in the last few seasons.
England's loss imo.

One day the real story will come out.

That I agree with. There's clearly more to Brough not getting picked by McNamara than simply he doesn't rate him. Various hints have been made to back that up too. I'm still yet to hear a solid rumour as to what that reason is though.

Bowden was a classy player, that's for sure, mind you the Widnes pack in those days was rarely outshone so he had a solid basis to work his 'magic'. I never did work out how he produced the famous 'Stuart Wright Bounce' though. Wright would hare it down the wing, Bowden would kick through and the ball would [ialways[/i jump into his arms - he never even had to bend his back......ever. Just amazing!

After a bruising match against Widnes at Odsal in the 70's, Stuart Wright was shouting at Barry Seabourne in the Players Bar telling him how much stick etc he was going to get when they played at Widnes.
In the return at Widnes the first time Wright got the ball he set off flying down the wing, when Seabourne shoved his elbow in his face, I think he broke his jaw, one of the worst "tackles" I've ever seen, and if memory serves me he wasn't even penalised

It was certainly a tough game back in the 70s. I remember seeing a video of the Leeds vs Leigh Cup final at Wembley with tigertot. It was the game Hynes was sent off. The casual violence that was ignored in that game was unbelievable. Even 20 years ago the game was much dirtier than it is now. Is it over sanitised?

Thinking back to the first scrum in that game....I now work with Tony Fisher's ex son-in-law; we had an amusing chat the other day about Tony. You accepted things back then which would make you shudder now. When Briers slapped Ablett recently most fans would have laughed 20 years ago rather than screamed for his head, such was the patheticness of it.

Get your retaliation in first, was how it was referred to in those days. It was a hard, and pretty cynical game back then.

My main gripe is that the Coach of the Year is chosen before the Grand Final. I don't have a problem with them picking the MoS before the GF, doesn't really matter that Brough wasn't playing today.

But the top coaches are all aiming to win the GF. Baloo had a very good season but if he was only aiming for the league leader's shield then he had a much easier job than Wane, Smith and McDermott. And to win the CC as well makes Wane's right to the award indisputable IMO.

I think there's probably a feeling that coaching Wigan is much easier than coaching the Giants. But Wane did a magnificent job in replacing his half backs with two seemingly inferior players and still improving the team. Tomkins apart there are aren't that many superstars in the Wigan team.

In year's to come I think this season's award will come to be seen as an aberration, like Endacott winning it in 2000. But only because they made the decision a week early.