I wonder, if it's the same person (not saying it's Wane btw) who thought Hopkins, Tautai, Clarke, Singleton, Lauaki, Pettybourne would be decent options?

I get what you're saying Stu but I'm similarly pro Wigan and anti Saints (I think hate is a strong word btw) at club level. However, if I was picking an England side today it would contain many Saints players and, probably, the majority of the ones you would pick. I certainly wouldn't pick a Wigan player if there was a better option elsewhere. I'm just a fan. I would hope that a National coach as professional and honourable as Wane... and say what you like about him he is certainly those... would be equally capable of doing the same.

Fair comments.

Anybody who thinks Wane won’t pick Makinson, Lomax, Walmsley and Knowles as an absolute minimum in his England squad wants their bumps feeling. He may well pick another 2 or 3 on top of that (I’d pick Welsby, Dodds and Batchelor in a 25 man squad as well).

He’ll try and pick many of them in the All Stars game in a few months but I doubt he’ll be successful in getting them all out on the field, through no fault of his or those players.

I think a massive positive that we will see from Wane is that we won't be trawling the NRL for any players with British ancestry who would never even be considered for Australia, unlike some previous selections. I do think previously any British players in the NRL were put on a pedestal and were a shoe in for the national team on that basis alone (regardless of form/performance there). I think Gildart & Hodgson will be interesting inclusions/omissions come selection time...pre Wane there would be no question, now I think it will be more on form rather than reputation.

I think Herbie Farnworth will be in serious contention.

Hopefully him being dumped out of that training squad was just a little wake up call. If he’s looking at the NRL I’d imagine him and Sutton will be the most likely to get call ups. He won’t disrespect this comp like Bennett did at times. I genuinely think somebody like Bennett automatically thought Hodgson was better then somebody like James Roby. That will never happen under Waney and nor should it.

You’re so far off the truth on this. Wane doesn’t hate St Helens. He has regularly spoken about his respect for them and enjoys the rivalry.

If anything, Wane’s involvement with Wigan will lead to him picking less Wigan players. He will try to pick the best 17 he can. Whether your club allows him to do this remains to be seen.

Well, he thought playing Blake Austin on the wing was OK...

A Championship winger would have done better.

That pesky, anti Saints, gorilla Wane has only picked 8 of them in his 30 man training squad for England (which has just been named).

Chest beating, thick sounding, knuckle dragging, ape like Saints hater that he is.

Still, the grown ups on Red Vee were even less complimentary about Matt Peet when I gave up looking after 30 seconds last week, so maybe they like him.

Typical Wane, picking loads of Saints players trying to tire us out and de-rail our season

He's failed us really. I heard he was trying to find English grandparents for Paasi and co too. Not happy!

At least 6 of them will get mysterious injuries the week before camp.

We need a new variant of Covid, let's see what they can cook up on the streets of Sint Helens

I’m wondering if Woolf will in-prison his overseas players again when they pick the All Stars team?

What if Woolf is asked to be the coach...

I heard he hid his mobile before last years All Stars game and hasn’t found it since, so he can’t be contacted anyway.

Good to see you've moved on from this

I’m sure Saints fans would love everyone to move on. We’ll see how we go this year with that All Stars team (and who actually turns out for England) and then maybe we can.

I’m being reasonable in saying Paasi and Matautia as an absolute minimum would be selected on merit, so let’s wait and see.

I can't speak for the situation with the All Stars other than yes I was surprised that we had no representatives. However from an England point of view, if I recall there was only Lomax that was sent home injured. He wanted to continue in camp but Wane said it wasn't worth the risk and sent him home.

I agree, lets see what happens before Woolf is hung, drawn and quartered.

Walmsley didn’t play either. Tough to say how bad these injuries were as you had a lot of time off due to other sides Covid issues after that.

The All Stars thing was pretty poor IMO but it’s been and gone. The game this June is on a free weekend I believe, so there’s no excuses at all for at least those two lads I mention playing for the All Stars and you’d have to think guys like Grace, Hurrell, Hopoate and Lussick are a shot as well. I can’t say I’m hugely confident because there (hopefully) won’t be many Covid rests this year and that may be seen as a chance for a recharging of the batteries by Woolf.

It’s funny that you said maybe Wane should’ve given the England job up when he took his Wigan role, well given Woolf has an active interest in trying to beat England to a World Cup, maybe the real question should’ve been if Woolf having those two roles is a conflict of interests? It’s certainly more of one than Wane having a background role at a superleague team, in an English competition.

Fair. You make some good points, Woolf could be classed as having a conflict of interest I agree. I'd rather him not coach Tonga and fully concentrate on Saints however to be fair to him he's not jetting off back there for mid-season camps or games so they will only play after our season finishes. I can see there being a max limit from each team though especially with the All Stars.

The only part of your post that I disagree with is you saying Wane has a background role. I don't for one minute think that such an experienced coach isn't having a big impact on a rookie coach and two rookie assistants.

If it’s a free weekend it should be no limits and the best of the best get picked. That is what it needs to be to ensure it’s as good a warm up game for England as possible. If that means 10-12 Saints lads turning out, then so be it and we could have 8 or 9 as well including All Stars players.

I’m sure Waney does have a role to play in mentoring those young coaches and maybe in recruitment decisions and the like but it’s certainly not front and centre. A conflict of interest would actually be if he named no Wigan players and rested them and named umpteen players in his England 17 from the club Wigan player next after that All Stars fixture (difficult mind as it’s Toulouse but still

)

One sure sign that Wane is keeping the roles absolutely separate is him picking Pearce-Paul in this training squad. I bet Lenagan has thanked him for putting a few extra quid on his next contract negotiation.

He's only picked them so that they will want a contract increase and thus hit Saints salary cap.