How bad was Sinfield tonight?

Quote: PONNER "My god all these people agreeing with me now after I was slated a few weeks ago for saying the same kind of thing. He's a great goal kicker no doubt but it's only because he has a decent team behind him that he wins all those accolades. The amount of last tackle kicks he puts out on the full, the amount of knock ons and forward passes he throws will never make him a worthy Golden Boot winner. I said there would be at least 50 NRL players worthy of that title before him and we saw 17 of them in a Melbourne shirt on Friday. For those that say it's for his leadership skills then where are those skills when the Rhinos have been getting beaten on a regular basis for the first 2/3 of the season in the last 2 years. While we have him as an England captain we won't have a cat in hells chance of winning the world cup.'"

Care to provide anything resembling evidence for these ridiculous statements? I'd love to know what proportion of his kicks go out on the full, I would imagine it's miniscule, and I would imagine also that his forward passes and knock ons would compare favourably with most. I'm willing to accept I'm wrong, once you provide the mountain of evidence you've obviously used to come to these conclusions (don't forget to include comparative stats for other players, wouldn't want you seeming like an agenda driven crackpot now would we...)

Just because you think every member (I've got that right haven't I, every single member?) of the Storm squad, including the 3/4 line who were outclassed by their opposite numbers (including a second rower playing out of position) are better, along with at least fifty others, doesn't make it so. Likewise your baffling insistence that he isn't a great leader because we lost a fair few early in the season - am I to assume that Cameron Smith is therefore rubbish because the Storm lost five on the bounce at the back end of the season? Even with (at least) 17 players better than Sinfield in his team? He must be a dreadful captain. But then, when it mattered, both led their teams to the top prize didn't they, so maybe they know what they're doing.

Swap Sinfield with his opposite number in either of the GF semi's or finals in the last two seasons and I'd wager the opposition would win. He makes the right decisions on an overwhelmingly regular basis, he's an exceptional kicker, he's a great reader of the game and I have absolutely no doubt he is the best leader we have in England by a huge distance - if you can't see that then, in my humble opinion, you're either biased or you don't understand what he does.