Fylde Warrior, you're perfectly entitled to believe that Kevin Sinfield isn't the best player in the world, or that the NRL is a better competition than Super League, or that Harry Edgar is a fine, upstanding individual.

What irritated me about your previous posts were your innuendos against me, and particularly against my colleague John Drake, who I work with every day and whose integrity is probably as great as anyone else I know. That's why I would like to know who you are, and who your connections are that have persuaded you to make those assertions, particularly when you consciously created an identity on here through which you could make them.

On the transparency issue, I don't know any award in Rugby League in which the voting panel is either revealed or their votes revealed.

We did it for the last few years with the Golden Boot, but some of the judges felt uncomfortable with the reaction they got from some supporters because of the way they voted. So we have now reverted to the same system that is used for most awards in sport and entertainment, and that used to be operated by Harry Edgar when he ran Open Rugby.

I agree that it's interesting to see how people vote. But you would have had more credibility on this issue if you had objected to the RLIF not making the votes public when it decided that Cameron Smith was its player of the year, or the RFL when not revealing the votes that gave Sam Tomkins the Man of Steel award.

And what about the IRB deciding that Dan Carter was the RU international player of the year?

And I suppose you will get very upset when we learn the results of the Oscars, and we are not told who has voted for all the winners at the Oscar ceremony.

In fact the only award I can think of that is truly transparent is the Albert Goldthorpe Medal, which we run in League Express.

And one final point.

The Golden Boot isn't awarded to the most consistent player (Scott Dureau won the AG Medal for that), the most exciting player (probably Ben Barba), the most elusive player (Sam Tomkins), the hardest working player (Nate Myles, perhaps), the best player around the ruck (Cameron Smith).

It's awarded to the best player in the world, taking into account all his qualities, including the way he inspires his team-mates, and that was clearly Kevin Sinfield in 2012, although I'll grant you that Cameron Smith also had a brilliant season. Just not quite good enough to win the Golden Boot.

I would also just remind you, when you talk about sub-standard competitions, that on the only two occasions when Super League teams played against NRL teams in 2012, the Super League teams won both matches. Warrington travelled to Sydney to beat Souths, and Leeds beat Manly.

That's a funny way to be second rate!

Did Sinfield play on his own for the Leeds Rhinos? No wonder they've won that many SL titles from 5th





Care to list all those international performances by Sinfield against Australia where he's demonstrated any world class qualities at that level which may warrant the awarding of the Golden Boot best player in the world award at any time? An award which incidentally places "particular emphasis on performances at international level"... or at least it used to do.





3, 0 and 2 times respectively, but I'm not aware of any of those players ever being awarded the Golden Boot best player in the world award either

His international credibility is a subjective opinion, yours is he lacks it. Most people would probably think that your opinion lacks credibility, especially the corner you have painted yourself into regarding England and Leeds Rhino’s especially has led to some fairly incredulous opinions that you have put forth. But both my opinion on your credibility and yours on Kevin Sinfields are irrelevant because it is impossible to say what would have happened because they didn’t play, it is unarguable fact, that Australia’s decision not to play, and the disappointingly potical proposal from NZ did deprive Kevin Sinfield of the opportunity for international success against the major southern hemisphere sides and as such it is clearly correct to say that it wasn’t his fault he didn’t have success against those nations this year.



Sinfield did experience international success this year by the way. The international game doesn’t start and stop with the Australians, however much they, and their fanboys believe it does.

So you think the 2012 Golden Boot winner should be based on previous years games and results? strange.

Perhaps he was denied. He's won MOM the last two times England have played New Zealand over here. If we could've had a 3 game England vs NZ series their's a good chance he might have been Man of the Series.

Who awarded him Man of the Match in the game played in England?