Sal Paradise wrote:Replacing either of Sinfield or Peacock was always going to be tough. Finding a half back of that quality is almost impossible. I genuinely think GH thought this year would be Sinfield's last and his move to RU was a shock. Add to that Sutcliffe being injured and the 2 year planned transition was no more. We cannot produce half backs here and very few top halves ever come here - Carney is an exception and he would not have been available to Leeds anyway. Gidley would have been an ideal stop gap but Leeds weren't at the races where that was concerned.
Where GH should have done better is getting a hooker - Falloon is poor - we needed a serious player to organise and move the team around.
On the props Galloway should be better than he is showing but Garbutt should never have been signed he helped a tired side at the end of last season but he isnt even SL standard.
I'm sorry but I can't let you get away with this one.....Garbutt was rightly praised by many for his positive beefing up of the pack last season....and without a doubt was (and is) SL standard. Certainly he is of this season's SL standards: unquestionably.
How can you reconcile 'should never have been signed' with 'helped a tired side at the end of last season' ? Surely for that factor alone it was a 'very good, prudent signing' (as indeed most said at the time)?
Without the signing of Garbutt it would have been very much less likely Leeds would have won the treble ..or maybe indeed any silverware. As you say Garbutt came at the exact right time for a team that was on its knees in the forwards and sinking. How you can then go on to say he should not have been signed is a little contradictarily bizarre.
