utter tosh

Sinfield has been proving his quality for over a decade, yet Brough has barely managed to maintain form for a full season in the same time perios.

Sinfield is a good club captain but not a great player. When it comes to the world cup he'll be captain of players he doesn't know inside out so his selection in to the squad never mind captain is pathetic. I've seen plenty of Rhinos games this season and he's never anywhere near deserving man of match awards. Brough has given him a master class in half back play twice this season so far so he must be feeling a right pleb that someone head and shoulders above him isn't getting picked for England. If 'Sir Kev' has any decency he'll step down for the good of the country so that we can stand a chance against the Aussies. McNamara should be nowhere near the England set up.

There is no comparison - Brough is a superbly gifted, skillful, creative, explosive,master kicking exciting rugby league player - Sinfield isn't !!

Sinfield is a winner though. Tried and tested. He somehow, by whatever means, drags his team over the finish line. See the grand final last year, without Sinfield, Warrington would have won that game.

I think his game all in all isn't as good as Brough (on a good day) Widdop or Myler, but you can't deny his pedigree.

Why are we pretending Brough was ‘good’ on Saturday? His kicking game was average, just lumped down field, none-looked difficult to deal with and the one Hardaker dropped was entirely down to poor play by Hardaker. I can’t remember Brough taking on the line at all, nor a any great creative work from him, the one time he did try and put someone through a gap he managed to waste a 3 man over-lap throwing the ball comfortably behind everyone and straight in to touch.

There wasn’t a halfback on the field who had a ‘good’ game. In fact I would say that if you looked at the spine of the teams 1,6,7,9 you could argue only Lunt impressed at all.

That game was all about the forwards in its entirety. Bar a couple of Cudjoe interceptions you could largely have substituted the entire set of backs and half-backs and I doubt anyone would have noticed.

Hudds got a well deserved win because of some monster performances upfront.

Nobody was saying Brough was 'good', he was 'GREAT' with his pin point kicking and awesome defence. TBH I didn't notice his defence as much being at the game but i've watched it twice on TV now and seen the amount of work he put in. You aren't McNamara by any chance are you cos he can't spot talent either.

If you didn't think that was a master kicking display from Brough then you have no idea about rugby league. Time and time again Brough put in a pin point kick which split the winger and the full back.

Why would you move Tomkins to a position he hasn't played at regularly for years? Unless Wane can be persuaded to play him at 6 for the rest of the season I wouldn't even consider putting people out of position.

He drags Leeds over the line, but I doubt he commands the same aura in the England squad. Not saying he isn't respected, I'm sure he is, but when you've been a club legend for so many years, your influence there is bound to be very high - don't expect the same level of influence to be carried into a different team.

I don't envisage him to be the same, nor would I want him to be. This group is an elite selection and should be treated as such. They will need leading, not dictation. I doubt Brough will offer the same leadership/navigation as Sinfield would. Should he do it from half back, or should he do it from loose forward? Who knows. We all know he lacks the pace and craft to unlock an Australian defence, so maybe a shift to the back row with a genuine half back would be a smarter move?

So he meant to kick directly to the hands of Hall, Hardaker or Watkins repeatedly? Odd choice for a halfback and one which very nearly cost Hudds a try.

If that’s Brough being ‘GREAT’ I can well understand why he has experienced such limited success throughout his career.

Surely this answer to this debate is as follows... England halfbacks to be...

No. 6 - Kevin Sinfield - Mr consistency with an excellent all round game + wonderful goal kicker + England Captain
No. 7 - Danny Brough - pace + flair + superb general kicking game

i.e the best of both worlds + both true Englishmen and send Kiwi Rangi Chase packing back to Australia (off to play in the NRL anyway by all accounts).

No he didn’t, Many of kicks went straight to hand, none of them were dangerous. Even the kick which was praised to the high heavens by the commentary team wasn’t a ‘pin-point’ kick it was a hopeful punt up field which Hardaker made a meal of.