Hanley

Thanks for reminding me. I was sat right in front of Peacock when he scored.

That tour was when I saw my first live international! The second test at Bolton, that is

A neutral view;
Sinfield underrated
Farrell overrated
Sculthorpe miles better than both.

Had Sinfield been a bit quicker he would have always been a stand off, and he hardly played 13 in his last 5 years, so its a bit of a weird comparison. Sculthorpe really was best suited to 6 as well and no doubt would only have played there if he'd had a bit more pace. I think if either of them was an Aussie they would almost never have played in the forwards.

Of the three the only out-and-out forward was Farrell. I personally thought he played pretty well for GB, and all of them suffered from playing in a particularly bad era for us internationally. IIRC wasn't there at least one game where we picked a whole bunch of players who were loose forwards for their clubs but played across the park for GB?

Whilst my favourite loose forward (or should I say scariest to watch against Leeds) for a while was Knocker Norton, Ellery Hanley would have to be the best by a long way. He's the only British player in my years watching the game (going back to 81) who I would argue should be in a best 13 covering the whole era when including Aussies and Kiwis. He was a standout in a number of positions for GB and his tryscoring was phenomenal (whilst not an orthodox stand off 1984-85 he was incredible for Bradford). I don't think you can make a strong case for any other British player over the same era.