*Jonathan & Benjamin

Ryan Hall consistently puts in top performances at international level. Hall, Graham, Hill and S.Burgess should go in the side pretty much regardless of whether they are in form at club level IMO, because we know they perform for England.

Shaul?

I'm a Hull fan and Shaul is nowhere near international level. He's had a poor year by his standards, and has zero creativity/handling ability.

Also, Hall has proven time and time again that he's a big game player on the International stage. Until he has a bad game for England it's his shirt to lose.

Yep, it gets boring making this point to those advocating the latest form horse as a better option but i still fail to see anyone in SL right now who could be trusted to do a better job at that level, The guy scores at the rate of a try a game and carries the ball back to great effect, what more do people want FFS?

I think the international game suits some players more than others. For example, Hall, Crabtree and Westwood all looked far better for England than they did for their clubs, whereas Watkins, Charnley and Sinfield looked worse. Possibly a size thing.

Strange balance to that squad. 25/27 players from just 5 SL clubs & 5 clubs with no representation at all, including 2 of the current top 4.

In contrast 13/16 NRL clubs were represented in Origin yesterday & in the last game it was all 16.

The phrasing is performance squad which is bizarre because you've got Eden and McShane no international experience but domestically performing well, yet you have Brown, Clark and Cooper who've all been e p, then there's Lomax, Currie, Bateman who've hardly if at all played this year.

To be fair, Origin is 34 players so you will have more of a spread of players.

But I do agree, there's certainly a favouritism towards certain clubs and has been for some time despite the poor performances and form of said players.

Wayne Bennett picked the squad. He's only been in charge 2 minutes.

yet last season DH outplayed the lot of them apart from hodgson and still wasn't picked. also if you are picking on form why are there so many warrington players in there?

Bennett's also not here. I bet the clubs that provide the majority of that squad have had the most Sky coverage.

Seeing as Warrington are on sky nearly every week it makes the decisions to pick players from them even more laughable

Doesn't have to be just about form. Very reasonable for a national coach to think he can get more out of player than his club coach is at the moment. Some players he might just not think are suited to play vs the Aussies and Kiwis. Some Wakey fans have mentioned BJB, who I think is a good SL winger but for me even going back to his Leeds days (where he wasn't selected then either for the big club bias theorists) he's never struck me as suited to International level where it obviously looks like Bennett wants the big wingers who play like forwards carrying the ball back and Hall & McGillvary are the obvious choices.

Also you shouldn't forget the players at the "bigger clubs" have usually played in numerous playoff and cup finals and semis, involved in WCC's too and have lots more experience than those players at "smaller clubs" who really don't have that and it'd be a big ask to start picking guys who haven't even experienced the pressure of a domestic final and throw them into a possible WC final or semi against one of the 2 big boys from down under.

People realise its an elite performance squad and not a starting 13 right?

So why is half of it filled with players who aren't performing?

Cos its an elite perfomance squad and not a who played well last week and who can we pick to pander to paranoid squad.

again, why have warrington players such as brown and cooper who have been poor all season and currie who hasnt touched a rugby ball since september!

Cos thats what an Elite performance squad is for.

Take Brown as an example, Is Brown on form? no. Is Brown likely to be our starting half in the WC? no. Could he get his form back and be pushing for a spot? Maybe. Or If we lose Widdop and Williams for instance, who else are we going to use? So you take Brown.

Then if Brown regains his form, or if we suffer an injury you aren't then going to world cup with a player who has no idea about tactics, or the plays, or who has no experience of being in international camp, or with what is expected.

I'm sure he will be getting sent recordings of every game, not just whoever was on sky.

but can he be ar5ed to watch them?!

A bit unfair on Currie, he's been far better than all the other Warrington players this year. Admittedly he's been sat in the stands.

Adam Cuthbertson should be in on last nights performance.

Play to the rules, every other country and sport does.

Does every other country change its domestic league structure every three years? No?

Isn't that Blu and Betts job??

This elite squad is not a guaranteed squad inclusion for this years world cup
There will be changes to the final squad closer to the seasons end as numerous players won't make the final squad due to the NRL based players being selected

Will Sam Tomkins be fast tracked to the elite squad when he finally returns from injury?
If so based on what at international level?
Zak Hardaker is a far better FB than Sam will ever be IMO

These players will be certainties in this starting side without a doubt and the gaps will be filled by players from the final squad

1:Hardaker
2:McGilvray
3:Watkins
4:
5:Hall
6:Widdop
7:Williams/Gale
8:Hill
9:Hodgson
10:Graham
11:
12:Burgess (Sam)
13:O'Loughlin (Captain)