Back to the topic.... Were going to get a right good hiding

Thinking about it, I think that the Aussies will concentrate on trying to stop Tomkins and hit him hard when he gets it. We all know that he is temremental (as we saw at the semi final) and if he gets wound up against the Aussies then he'll get hit harder than he expects...

Stevo's tongue will be firmly removed from Sam's bullethole come 1615 Saturday, mark my words. The lad is out of his element in this game and his contribution in my opinion will go no further than possibly setting up a try, maybe two, from kicks. Something like that.

Having watched Sam since he was 16 that won't bother him at all. The opposition have been trying to "knock him about" since he was young. He's a very tough kid.

What I hope is that he does really wind the Aussies up and get under their skin.

It will also get the crowd fired up.

One thing, I don't expect the same result as the one that happened exactly 12 months ago this Saturday coming.

I agree, he really needs to wind them up and take their eyes of the game itself.

The Aussies defend like , period. It doesn't matter who has the ball.

He needs to focus on his game we had seen first hand what can happen if he gets involved too much (King CC semi) not to mention the fact Aussies love that kind of thing they feed off it.

Well that'll be a damn site better than anybody else did the last time we played them.

He might have picked Senior if he hadn't have retired from international rugby at the end of the World Cup in 2008.





As for Gleeson, his little brother Mark is in better form for Halifax. Martin Gleeson would have been about as much use as a truck load of dead rats in a used tampon factory against the Aussies on Saturday.

England are gonna get smashed, Tomkins is gonna get smashed and shown up by the Aussies, like the majority of the England side will. Winding them up, getting under their skin, distracting them etc., will not work.

It's posts like these that give League Freak ammo.

bet the aussies are bricking it now the one trick pony is playing...aussies by a country mile

I love how the Wire fans are now doing what we criticised Wigan fans for doing last week.

Get behind Tomkins - he's a talented youngster who may go on to be better than Myler or might not. We don't know yet and for the next two weeks, both are pretty much at the same stage of their development.

hope the lad does do well but i cant see it really..from what ive seen of all the teams the aussies and new zealand are miles ahead of us....and whoever plays at sh and so wont make a scrap of difference...but best of luck tho

The team looks to have a better balance than last weeks.

Unfortunate for Myler but you can't argue with Tomkns getting picked on form. It'll take some doing but the Kiwis proved last week that they aren't supermen.

True but the Kiwis defence was great under massive Aussie pressure, got a bad feeling they might just over power England out wide.

He has my backing and support, as do the rest of the England side, but if we can get into double figures for points, I'll be amazed.

Personally i would have put Eastmond at left centre as Shenton has been fairly low key in the last 2 games against average opposition, their just isn`t any real spark in that three quarter line and at least Eastmond would provide some of that, whether he would have got quality service is a different debate.

Brough should have been included in the 4 nations squad because i`m not so sure that either Myler (due to lack of games mainly) or Tomkins (mainly playing at 6 this year and not an organiser at this stage of his career just yet) were ready for this sort of challenge, Brough is a battle hardened pro that knows how to lead and organise with a good kicking game, he`s no Thurston but i would have had him in ahead of both Myler and Tomkins.

Whether Myler or Tomkins got a start in this game was a bit irrelevant for me as the backline just doesn`t look good enough anyway and from what ive seen so far our hookers don`t look good enough either, it will be a bit of the usual GB/England spirit in patches but with the usual end result.

Looking at that line up i`d say were going backwards very quickly at international level, sides that contained the likes of Radlinski, Connelly, Jason Robinson and Farrell etc etc were better sides than the one above and people were branding those sort of past GB sides as rubbish, this one looks even worse especially in the backline.

if you want to see how far backwards we've gone, then have a look at the England v Wales teams that played in the 1995 Rugby League World cup.

I'll let you do the research, but the Welsh backline was something like this
Harris, Devereux, Bateman, Gibbs, Sullivan, Davies and Elliss.

Yeah, and they thrashed the Aussies.

We're in a transition period. In five years we might be talking about some of these players (not Lee Smith obviously) in the same breath as those Welsh players.

Were always in a transition period when it comes to the GB/England rugby league team.

That quote has been worn out over thew years by the media, remember were improving every year in this country according to Eddie.

We will have the same gap to the Australians during the next 30 years in the same way that previous history has told us the same, a few one off wins now and then but light years behind them standard and ability wise.

We can just about put 17 competetive players on the pitch at international level where as Australia will always be able to pick 3 different teams that could beat us from their pool of players, for as long as football is around and all its glamour we won`t get many kids who will be willing hit tackling bags and shields during winter training sessions on a mud soaked field with your fingers numb from the cold.

your wrong higham ripped them all the time kc stadium and also last years world cup

1995 World Cup semi-final teams

England: Kris Radlinski; Jason Robinson, Nick Pinkney, Paul Newlove,
Martin Offiah; Tony Smith, Bobbie Goulding; Karl Harrison,
Lee Jackson, Andy Platt, Denis Betts (c), Phil Clarke,
Andrew Farrell; Dean Sampson, Mick Cassidy, Simon Haughton, --.
Not used: Barrie-Jon Mather.
Wales: Iestyn Harris; John Devereux, Allan Bateman, Scott Gibbs,
Anthony Sullivan; Jonathan Davies (c), Kevin Ellis; Kelvin Skerrett,
Martin Hall, David Young, Paul Moriarty, Scott Quinnell,
Richard Eyres; Mark Jones, Rowland Phillips, Keiron Cunningham,
--. Not used: Adrian Hadley.

Australia: Tim Brasher; Rod Wishart, Mark Coyne, Terry Hill,
Brett Dallas; Brad Fittler (c), Geoff Toovey; Dean Pay,
Andrew Johns, Mark Carroll, Steven Menzies, Gary Larson, Jim Dymock;
Robbie O'Davis, Jason Smith, Matthew Johns, Nik Kosef.
New Zealand: Matthew Ridge (c); Sean Hoppe, Kevin Iro,
Richard Blackmore, Richard Barnett; Tony Kemp, Stacey Jones;
John Lomax, Henry Paul, Jason Lowrie, Stephen Kearney,
Quentin Pongia, Mark Horo; Gene Ngamu, Tony Iro, Ruben Wiki,
Hitro Okesene.

Not a lot of people comment on this where Tomkins is concerned, i was begining to think it was just me who thought this lol.... But your right though Thurston and lockyer are gonna be having sleepless nights now knowing Sams playing lol... there never gonna work out how to play slick step Sam are they .

Ps i do actually rate him as a prospect but he's not the be all and end all that the wiganers seem to think at th mo.... and in fairness neither is Myler at the moment....

Tomkins is on his own turf, he will do fine I'm sure, he has my backing. However, IF he doesn't perform the Wiganers are bound to turn around and blame Tony Smith for some silly reason just you watch.

In fairness it wouldn't be hard. Ellis, Devereux and even Sullivan were nothing special in the context of what we have had in recent years: Burrow, Senior and Carney for instance were a lot better than those three.

Most RL fans seem to think Harris was overrated so basically it was only Davies who made that Welsh side remembered as great.