Has he gestured them to "FO" yet?

No,its Clark Kent.

well done sam!

just to be clear....he's won the 'RL writers' SL player of the year

Thanks for clearing that one up.

well if you made it clear in your first post we would'nt have had posts asking if this was man of steel would we sweetheart!

Hi Spud I don't want to get into a slanging match with you but please read the original post carefully. Unless people don't know what journos are, then there is no ambiguity.

Well deserved too.

Well deserved and has been the stand out player for me this season.

Well done, now it's time he stepped up in an England shirt.

I'm more shocked the OP can't spell 'horror'.

Well done Sam. I guess most fans have only seen glimpses of him against their team and on Sky, but for fans who watch him week in, week out he's phenomenal. He'll do something and the Mrs and I just look at each other and say "'kin'ell, how did he do that?".

He makes mistakes and not everything comes off, but I can honestly say in 22+ years of watching RL I've never seen a player like Sam. There have been better 'RL' players; better half-backs, hookers, forwards, etc...in fact it's hard to label what Sam is, but he does some incredible stuff on the RL pitch. His evasion, vision and skills are second to none.

More like it.

Tomkins is a very good player though and certainly the most exciting English back playing in SL

The only players I honestly believe who are more evasive than Tomkins are probably Billy Slater and Ben BaBa. Half the NRL is a stupid statement.

Well Slater et al play against rock solid Aussie defences week after week Tomkins is playing teams like Wakefield & Crusaders. IF he went over to the NRL and ripped it up then you would have a fair comparison

I know the NRL is a better competition but even then sometimes the defending is shocking. I want him to go to Australia and prove himself, thats when I think we can honestly call him a world class player.

Correction of omission

In Europe we have a hand full of good teams in Aus they have New South Wales Cup teams who would give SL teams a run for there money. When players are asked the differences between SL and the NRL most of them answer 'intensity'. In Aus week in week out you have to be at 100% or you run the risk of getting a beating in Europe the top teams can have off days and still win. Tomkins is playing in general against inferior defences and teams, players like Slater play against the best and stand out. Slater has consistently performed in SOO and at international level, he is without doubt THE best fullback in the world and worryingly for us they could replace him with players like Darius Boyd, Brett Stewart, Jarryd Hayne,Kevin Locke and still not miss a beat.

They sure do.
( Youtube search -> jack reed 50m try)

1 try. Great we should all be looking forward to the 4 nations and victory ....

It was the 4 absolutely woeful attempts at tackles I was looking at.

Walked through that Billy Slater.

Best in the world by miles, apparently.

Your right, he missed a tackle he's e, silly me.

Actually he misses quite a few 1-on-1s. There are plenty of examples on YouTube.

I've said it before: Slater is a devastating runner and support player with fantastic skills and you'd want him in your team. But as a pure full-back he slips a little. His 1-on-1 tackling is suspect, especially against big players, and he's prone to too many brain-farts: high and/or dirty tackles, losing the ball, etc.

Just because he's Australian and fantastic at certain aspects of the game doesn't mean the sun shines out his 4rse in every way.

That's all I was poitning out. The NRL may be a better standard, but they're not supermen.

If our players are going into the 4 nations with the same attitude of some of these posters, it no wonder we've not beaten the Aussies in so long. Hopefully, our players should be able to see a green and gold shirt without filling their pants.

Tony Smith said the same when he was in charge for that tour. I understand that for that tour there were several players who didn't have the right mindset for it. Those that didn't were deemed to be a concern within the squad with one individual in particular apparently more interested in social activities than getting his mind right. You can see how important it is by the way that Smith has handled Briers and turned him from a shallow goes missing show pony into one of the premier half backs in the competition. Briers now has a professional attitude and it shows.