Re: Sinny retires : Tue Sep 02, 2014 11:45 am
Biff Tannen wrote:
Lets be honest, up until the last WC sinfield had endured quite a torid time on the international stage.But during his periods in the team until that point he was steering a rudderless ship, our team on the whole was so far behind the NZ and OZ teams as shown in results from the mid 2000's on so its hardly surprising he couldn't shine.
In the WC, Sinfield finally had a side around him who could genuinly compete for 80 minutes with the other 2 big nations and and,surprise surprise! , he delivered in every game. Its a shame of course what happened at the end of the semi (in which he was excellent on the whole), but imo he retires at least with his head held high, if not with the legacy he will leave when he retires from his club.
In the WC, Sinfield finally had a side around him who could genuinly compete for 80 minutes with the other 2 big nations and and,surprise surprise! , he delivered in every game. Its a shame of course what happened at the end of the semi (in which he was excellent on the whole), but imo he retires at least with his head held high, if not with the legacy he will leave when he retires from his club.
"In the WC, Sinfield finally had a side around him"
This is the key part. His first 8 years for England 2000-2008 he wasn't really given the reigns. He sometimes got picked, sometimes not. Some in the halves, loose, 2nd row, hooker, bench. Once he got given the 6 shirt and more importantly the captaincy he started to show what he could do.
Even the Aussie press had him rated quite highly on a list best international performers over the last few years didn't they?
He might not have lead us past New Zealand and Australia (might've done the latter had James Graham not made himself unpickable for that game and had O'Loughlin been fit, both the main contenders for the captaincy now. Instead we got Tom Burgess and Mossop taking their places for the opener ) but only given the captains role the previous year was perhaps too short a turnaround. Remember in 2003 in his first year as Leeds captain we fell short but Rome wasn't built in a day....or year in these cases)
The biggest mistake regarding Sinfield and the 2013 WC was that we didn't make him captain straight after the 2008 WC.