Widdop at full back could be a good shout, he certainly shouldn't in the halves IMO.
Williams is a player that seems to be getting a lot of praise, but I'm not convinced, he operates in the left channel, only seems to touch the ball when Wigan get within 20 yards of the line. He also never seems to kick or pass the ball more than 10 metres.

Hardaker tweeted this the other day so looks like he's involved

"Good first day back training with @England_RL great to see the boys.. Certainly blew some cob webs off."

Shaul
McGillvary
Watkins
Turner (I've been impressed with him this year at Saints)
Hall
Williams
Gale
Hill
Hodgson
Graham
Whitehead
Ferres
S Burgess

Clark
Bateman
T Burgess
Walmsley

I think he will be in the squad. The more i think about it, the more Hardaker to centre makes sense. The thought of Cudjoe or Atkins trying to keep Inglis quiet is enough to keep you awake at night and Hardaker is a very capable defender which will be priority when facing off against Inglis.

What have Watkins and Hall done this season to warrant international selection?

who would you say we should pick over these two?

Either of the Morris Twins (or both) and/or Joe Burgess.

As we know we aren't blessed with centre options. As for Hall he is a bit fortunate that Manfredi is injured and Burgess made an ill advised move to the NRL. With Burgess back at Wigan next year and if Manfredi can bounce back ok from his serious injury then Hall will have a job on to be a starter for the World Cup though. He is a rarity though in that he is a back who has shown up well at International level for England.

These are the first 10 players announced in the train on squad, NRL players and those involved in playoffs yet to be included.

Luke Gale (Castleford Tigers)
Jermaine McGillvary (Huddersfield Giants)
Leroy Cudjoe (Huddersfield Giants)
Kallum Watkins (Leeds Rhinos)
Ryan Hall (Leeds Rhinos)
Brett Ferres (Leeds Rhinos)
Stevie Ward (Leeds Rhinos)
Tom Briscoe (Leeds Rhinos)
Zak Hardaker (Leeds Rhinos)
Kevin Brown (Widnes Vikings)

Briscoe quite fortunate to be in particularly. Whilst Ward has been injured most of the year and shouldn't be involved because it's way too early in his comeback to be playing the Aussies and Kiwis it's good to see him included as he'll definitely be a future contender to play.

with Currie ruled out it makes sense to include the other back rower in Ward who is likely to be a cornerstone of the England pack in future years in the train on squad, can't see him making the final squad though and nor should he.

has to be said McGillvary has also had less than a stellar year in a team also struggling so i feel its a bit unfair to single out Hall. I still feel both of them are our best options still though. Manfredi and Burgess should make it interesting leading into the WC.

What has anyone else done to warrant selection over them, we really don't have much in depth and both players at 80% are still better than everyone else.

Morris twins are Australian and have many test caps, do we really want to go down this route, and neither of them are as good as Watkins and hall, Burgess one season wonder against players who have had one bad season don't think so.

When England meet Australia on 5th November, it'll be exactly 10 years and 1 day since the previous win again against them, a 23-12 victory as GB in Sydney in 2006.

That is a record length of time which has elapsed since beating them.

Therefore, I don't care what it takes to finally get a win and if that means Bennett giving as many SL players as possible a huge swerve in selection policy, then so be it. Most of the SL based players listed in this thread are weaknesses at international level. They are not up to the task, therefore I'd go with a team approaching the following line-up crammed with as many qualifying NRL personnel as possible...

I'm even prepared to nominate Hardaker for a bench role in this instance!

1. Gareth Widdop
2. Brett Morris
3. *** It's a shame Jack Reed had to retire ***
4. Josh Morris
5. Joe Burgess
6. Blake Austin
7. Trent Hodkinson
8. Chris Hill
9. Josh Hodgson
10. James Graham
11. Chris McQueen
12. Elliot Whitehead
13. Sam Burgess

14. George Burgess
15. Chris Heighington
16. Mike Cooper
17. Zak Hardaker

Yes, we need to go down this route in order to have any chance of winning.


My apologies.
I thought you were being serious.

Heighington, Mcqueen and hodkinson



i knew that would be your response which is why i never replied to the Morris brothers that you came back with. Look, im all for including players from the NRL willing to 100% play for us who would improve our team, have some sort of link to being English and haven't got a sack full of Australia caps already. we are all fed up of being beaten by the Aussies but winning with a team like that ( i don't think we would BTW it is no better than what we will likely field in november) wouldn't sit well with me at all.

i know...i shouldn't have bitten

Haven't the Morris twins already been ruled out of switching? www.triplem.com.au/sydney/sport/ ... s-england/

Haven't the Morris twins already been ruled out of switching? www.triplem.com.au/sydney/sport/ ... s-england/

I'd suggest the needs of the game in this country (a long-awaited Test win against Australia for instance) outweigh overly-precious parochial sentiments that don't sit too well with, erm... parochials



The game in this country is dying on it's @rse because Super League cannot provide sufficient media attention. It needs to take advantage of those rare international moments broadcast on Terrestrial TV in front of much bigger audiences than those tuning into Sky on Thursday evenings.

As long as those NRL-based players I listed above meet the selection criteria as laid down by the rules.

Why select inferior players from an inferior competition for international duty when you have access to better players from the best competition?

fair enough, find me a bunch of NRL players willing to improve us or better than whatwe have and we can talk.



I'm sorry but the likes of Mcqueen, Heighington etc... don't cut it.imo of course

just to add- maybe we should get a sabotage team set up down under to pick out some future beast international potential south sea islanders and get them to pledge their allegiance to her majesty and all that before the Aussies take them

Isn't that what the Aussies do with Kiwis like Tamou, and the Kiwis do with Tongans like Kata?



For what it's worth I don't disagree with Williams point that an international victory could give our game the kick in the backside it needs (as well as maybe getting the Aussies to take internationals seriously).

I'm just not convinced that any of the aussies we have been linked with our an improvement. Brett Morris is a crock, Hodkinson is basically Matty Smith and McQueen is a workhorse backrow, same with Heighington, decent player but shouldn't hold up the likes of Ward, Watts, Taylor etc.

I'm still not convinced winning a Four Nations tournament will give the boost to the game people hope it will (not a long term one anyway). We beat New Zealand in a series last year with them coming in as reigning 4 Nations champions and what's it really done?

Because beating Australia means so much to long time RL supporters because of the constant beatings they've had to endure at the hands of them I think they're overestimating what further reaching impact it would have, especially when you'd get a section of English RL 'fans' coming up with excuses for why Australia lost to an English team at least half filled with players from that sub standard Super Dooper League.

I agree I don't think it will have any effect on the game.

If the lists of SL-based England teams promoted by people on these forums are anything to go by, I've already found them and the talking is over and done with



You are of course entitled to your opinion but McQueen in particular, I'd take him over any of our SL-based second row options any day of the week. His loss to Souths hasn't gone unnoticed either. They've been poor since the likes of he moved elsewhere, while the return of Sam Burgess has made no difference to them whatsoever as they remain poor by NRL standards.

Give it a week or two and the usual suspects will appear with their old chestnuts proclaiming England a great chance alongside their strong pack of world-beating forwards leading the way because they are way better than those Aussie forwards... a line which has been repeated ad nauseam for as long as I can recall.

The only positive I can think of is... Wayne Bennett.

PS: If Watkins is selected on the basis of his form guide in the Sack-Of-S**t 8's (qualifiers lol) against the likes of Fev and Batley, England may as well not bother turning up.

I don't think he will be picked because of his form in the qualifiers, it's the rather more sad position of Lack of other options.

That's true. I've become so frustrated at Watkins' lack of progress over the last 3 or 4 seasons. I don't think he deserves to be in the national team. There's been times where I don't think he's warranted selection for Leeds either. He hugely lacks any kind of aggression.

Actually, make that less than an hour since I posted the above.

Someone has already posted this load of tosh on the VT...

[i"The best England pack we can put out can definitely do a job on that Aussie pack, we've got great options at 9 (though still not Smiths level) and if players like Watkins and Hall are at their best, we can match their outside backs"[/i

I don't know whether to laugh or cry