Quote: FIOS "Neither fill me with excitement. The only English halfback I would actually be happy to sign is Danny Brough. The rest on the list Smith, Gaskell, Lomax, Myler, Briers, Brown, McGuire, Sinfield are just a who's who of rugby league averageness. And Brough isn't that much better than them, he just has a world class kicking game which is what we need. It's a massive problem, I can't even remember the last decent English half.'"
That is a good summary. Brough is the best of an average lot due to his kicking game.
Tommy isn't what you might call a classic 7 anyway but none of those can fill his boots for me. He lacks certain things himself such as a good kicking game but if there are two words that sums his game up they are "power" and "strength". All the names on list are pretty feeble in comparison.
In that sense he is irreplaceable and I don't see the point in signing an average player to fill his slot. As whoever plays 7 will not be a Tommy clone we need to get the best half back we can. I would therefore play Rusell at 1, Sam at 6 and break the bank to keep Finch to play 7. Sam is certainly not as powerful a player as Tommy but as his other skills are so far beyond the other candidates we will be a different team but just as good if not better. If we sign any of those we will be different but not as good.
