How good is Paul Sculthorpe?

[Fairleigh Good!]

Yet another wow of a game on the big stage from the great one. A back to back Man of Steel and GB's best forward for years.

Can we now officially tag him the worlds greatest 6/13? Any nominations on who can rival him?

 

[yakstorm]

Personally, I felt he went a bit AWOL here and there, admittadely he did play well and did cause some excellent breaks. Alot more effective than Long who was surprisingly poor.

 

[Fairleigh Good!]

Personally, I felt he went a bit AWOL here and there, admittadely he did play well and did cause some excellent breaks. .

In attack or defence?

 

[Moffo]

i thought he was a standout

but the crap marking from the Aussies out there gave him a lot of room to move

Cheers,
Moffo

 

[vbfg]

Yet another wow of a game on the big stage from the great one. A back to back Man of Steel and GB's best forward for years.

Can we now officially tag him the worlds greatest 6/13? Any nominations on who can rival him?

You can't tag him the world's greatest 6. He'd need to be a 6 first. I don't care that he's played six most of this season (for the team that came 4th and finished ten points behind the 3rd place team), he's a loose forward. He should have been at 13 and Forshaw shouldn't have been on the pitch.

 

[Fairleigh Good!]

Yet another wow of a game on the big stage from the great one. A back to back Man of Steel and GB's best forward for years.

Can we now officially tag him the worlds greatest 6/13? Any nominations on who can rival him?

You can't tag him the world's greatest 6. He'd need to be a 6 first. I don't care that he's played six most of this season (for the team that came 4th and finished ten points behind the 3rd place team), he's a loose forward. He should have been at 13 and Forshaw shouldn't have been on the pitch.

I agree about him playing 13 at the expense of Forshaw, but can you name a stand off better than him?

 

[Alan Shore]

Yet another wow of a game on the big stage from the great one. A back to back Man of Steel and GB's best forward for years.

Can we now officially tag him the worlds greatest 6/13? Any nominations on who can rival him?

You can't tag him the world's greatest 6. He'd need to be a 6 first. I don't care that he's played six most of this season (for the team that came 4th and finished ten points behind the 3rd place team), he's a loose forward. He should have been at 13 and Forshaw shouldn't have been on the pitch.

I agree about him playing 13 at the expense of Forshaw, but can you name a stand off better than him?

He's a makeshit 6. Not a 6. He's the world's best Lock, though.

 

[vbfg]

Yet another wow of a game on the big stage from the great one. A back to back Man of Steel and GB's best forward for years.

Can we now officially tag him the worlds greatest 6/13? Any nominations on who can rival him?

You can't tag him the world's greatest 6. He'd need to be a 6 first. I don't care that he's played six most of this season (for the team that came 4th and finished ten points behind the 3rd place team), he's a loose forward. He should have been at 13 and Forshaw shouldn't have been on the pitch.

I agree about him playing 13 at the expense of Forshaw, but can you name a stand off better than him?

I would have picked either Long or Burrow before I'd consider trying to squeeze another loose forward into the side.

There were a couple of odd selection decisions for GB that I wasn't convinced about. If anything was shown by the game at Brentford last week it's that the Aussies don't like it up 'em, and I saw nothing tonight that said the extra preperation time has changed that.

I can live with Conolly being picked for his defence but I'd rather have had Gleeson. Forshaw getting in the side is just bizarre. Again, his tackling is superb but like Connolly he offered nothing in attack tonight. Since we've finally opted to play Farrell in the position he's always been best in I don't see why we shouldn't continue the good trend and play Sculthorpe in position for once.

I wouldn't mess with the team too much for next week. These guys came close and are going to be up for it now more than ever in Hull. I'd start with Deacon and Long at half back and I'd have Burrow on the bench. I'd drop Forshaw and move Sculthorpe up to lock. Other than that, and assuming sending off sufficient for Morley, I'd probably leave as is.

 

[dimitri]

what about this combo

6- P Deacon
7- S Long
13- P Sculthorpe

or I think long has more experience at 6

6- LONG
7- DEACON
13- SCULTHORPE

 

[JasonE]

Sculthorpe is a freak, thats only his 3rd game in 3 months and has hardly trained in that time, actually didnt run for the 2 weeks in the lead up to the game.

 

[Big-Hitter]

I can't believe people on here are advocating dropping Forshaw.

What game were you watching?

The bloke was given a specific job to do and carried it out to the letter. He was an absolute rock and probably GB's most impressive player in defence.

 

[iggy plop]

Sculthorpe is top-class, but he should be lock. I'd have Long at 6 and Deacon at half.

 

[vbfg]

I can't believe people on here are advocating dropping Forshaw.

What game were you watching?

Not the one I wanted to see where the best players in their respective positions are picked in those positions. Sculthorpe is the best 13 in the country and there are better stand offs in the country than Sculthorpe. Britain's kicking game in general play was pretty poor last night, or at least not up to the standard required, whilst one of the best kickers in the game sat on the bench.

Forshaw did a good solid job but that's the best we're ever going to get out of him, and unfortunately a solid job is less than is needed if we are to win. Sculthorpe is no liability in defence but is a huge improvement in his attacking play in that position.

We need a team out there that will take the game to the Aussies. They've shown that they are weak and they've shown they can be beaten. We shouldn't be picking 'safe' teams that can defend, we should be picking a team that can dictate the game. We're not going to do that with a loose forward at 6 and a player who's really a second row who doesn't quite have the legs anymore at 13.

I say this as a Bradford fan and a fan of Forshaw's. He's been a rock for Bradford but he's not the type of player we need to win this series.

 

[Roosterphin]

Yet another wow of a game on the big stage from the great one. A back to back Man of Steel and GB's best forward for years.

Can we now officially tag him the worlds greatest 6/13? Any nominations on who can rival him?

You can't tag him the world's greatest 6. He'd need to be a 6 first. I don't care that he's played six most of this season (for the team that came 4th and finished ten points behind the 3rd place team), he's a loose forward. He should have been at 13 and Forshaw shouldn't have been on the pitch.

I agree about him playing 13 at the expense of Forshaw, but can you name a stand off better than him?

Brad Fittler

 

[vbfg]

I'm not convinced he's eligible to play for GB.

 

[JJ]

I'm not convinced he's eligible to play for GB.

The original post suggested that Sculthorpe might be the world's best 6/13. Not sure what this means...

I think he deserves the title world's best lock.

As for people that can play both, I'd put Fittler and Scott Hill above him.

As for best stand-off :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: he's not close to the world's best 6, he's a very fine player who playes there due to lack of options...
Fittler, Barrett, Hill, much better in that position. But it does seem true that world-wide there is not a great number of very classy 5/8s...

 

[vbfg]

We don't have a dirth of people who can play at 6, but we have the kind of players who are half backs and who would be guaranteed to cause Australia problems.

I was quite pleased when Waite came to be GB coach cos I thought it would mean the end of one particular technique of selection that dogges us under Larder and Goodway. It works like this:

Sculthorpe is a good player, one of our best in fact. Good players win games. Half backs win games. Sculthorpe is a half back, one of our best in fact.

The same shocking logic was applied to Farrell who was never any more than a good second row who happens to have a license to kill within the borders of Wigan.

Waite has unfortunately carried on the fine tradition though.