Quote: easyWire "I think Sibbitt had a massive reputation because he was tearing it up in academy games. He used to stand out like a Sonny Bill or a Sam Burgess and used to power through the centres. That’s why so much was expected of him. Melbourne had probably been alerted to him and studied the tapes of those academy games and thought they could develop him into a star. Unfortunately he just never really stood out at senior level, which I suppose you could partly put down the fact that we were pretty rubbish even with Langer doing his best to pull the strings.
Luis Johnson could be put in the same bracket I suppose - he looked a monster at academy level.'"
I've defended against this weird retrospective dislike of sibbit on here before, and I promised I'd stay away this time.
However, as you've rightly put, 1999 and 2000 season sibbit was a killer in the academy levels.
But when he got into the first team, daryl had him filling in at centre, which made no sense (if you recall during the disastrous 2001 season, we signed Kidwelly at centre who went awol with a mystery injury).
He then went to Melbourne for a year, and came back to a different coach, but likewise Cullen ended up playing him at centre for most of the year and even with his knee hanging off and taped up to .
He only really got a chance playing back row for us, in fits and starts in 2004, by which time he was getting garbage minutes around a backroom that was Darren burns and Mike forshaw, with a smattering of Paul noone.