SINFIELD

Quote: WARRIORCRAIG "Err, no. I remember at the time when watching that game commenting that the HB partnership wasn't working because Sinfield was too slow and Chase was too unstructured and they weren't bringing Tomkins in to the attack enough. For me, come the WC, Widdop needs to be the 6 and someone really needs to put a name on the 7 shirt as there are currently no stand out contenders.'"

I like the thinking behind pairing Sinfield (a fairly rigid, structured organiser) with a more unpredictable, quicker half back. As a partnership it didn't work. In part because when Chase did the meandering roaming across in front of the Australian or Kiwi defensive line that had served him so well for Cas he just ended up looking like a headless chicken, ran his wide players out of the game and got rid of the depth Tomkins needed. Chase is capable of a plan B, but didn't produce it. I know not why, when his Plan A so transparently doesn't work at Test level.

Given that 6 and 7 are increasingly interchangeable these days, I'd go for Sinfield and Widdop as a first choice pairing. We don't produce top class 7s in this country, at least in part because no SL teams play with any one player consistently in the old scrum half position.

We have to bring Tomkins into the game as much as we can, but we have to do it in the areas that he's most dangerous from, chiming in from deep with runners outside him. That means halves that don't have a liking for hanging onto the ball too much and arcing out wide. Burrow plays like that for Leeds, and it works for Leeds, Chase does similar for Cas (when he isn't too busy trying to engineer an exit). But it doesn't bring a player like Tomkins into the game in the right places, which is why Leuluai and Finch don't do it so much for Wigan. Tomkins is our most dangerous player and the biggest attacking threat we've had at Test level in a long time, so we need to pick halves that allow him to play.