Quote craigizzard="craigizzard"Burrow is not and never will be an interchange hooker. Last season, when he played that role, it cocked up our defensive patterns and intensity when he came on because he is not physically capable of defending as a forward and our whole line had to shift to cover.
However when Burrow played as a substitute HALFBACK the impact was very good. For our two best performances of the year (Wire in the semi, Saints in the Grand Final), it wasn't with Burrow as an interchange 9, rather we had an actual hooker playing at hooker for the entire 80 minutes and Burrow coming on to play 7 with Sinfield to 13.
I'd still like us to sign an established 9, possibly to rotate with McShane, for the coming season. I have no idea how good Hood is or isn't at SL level but even if he's going to be a superstar it won't do his development any harm at all to go on a recallable loan to mid-SL club to get good experience while making any rookie errors away from Headingley. We'll get a better player back.'"
I would say you're being a touch critical but there is alot of truth to that.
Whilst Burrow offered alot in attack we did suffer defensively. I think alot of this was due to Buderus, one of if not our best defender, now sat on the bench. We saw in the semi and Grand Final we didn't lose the intensity in our defence or our tremendous kick chase with Buderus on the field.
One thing that worried me when Burrow was used as an interchange 9 was that he defended next to McGuire which led to that side being targetted often by the oposition. If Burrow is going to defend at half back then I was suprised not to see Sinfield defend more centrally with Burrow and McGuire defending either side of the pitch.
Back on topic, I'm more than happy to see McShane start as first choice next year. I just hope that us fans don't compare him with Buderus and we have the patience to stick with him if he does lose form.
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