Turncoat.

Feka not good enough anymore eh?

Nah, hes leavin at the end of the year, it was time to let go

Sam Thaiday, Trent Waterhouse, Anthony Watmough and Adam Blair. There are no world class English second rowers, indeed the only world class English players IMO are Peacock and maybe Graham. Burgess has that potential but needs to tear it up in the NRL first. I'm not saying you have to play in the NRL to be considered world class but you have to be tearing it up in which ever league you're in. The term world class is banded around far too easily IMO, to me it means that if you picked the best 17 players in the world at that time, that the player would be in there. If you've never had a game for your country then you aren't world class, Joel is one of our best players but not world class.

Burgess and Ellis are smashing the NRL to bits.

Peacock? The lad is shot to bits, not even been England class for the last 2 years.

English players have to do it so much tougher to be considered World Class as when it come to the top level that are usually playing in a team that is totally dominated.

it is an absolute pleasure to watch that lad play rugby league, and even better that he does it in cherry and white.

Sam Tomkins is World Class


So is Pat Richards...

Sam Tomkins
Better stand offs: Lockyer, Marshall
Better scrum halves: Thurston, Cronk

That's by no means an exhaustive list of halfbacks that I would pick ahead of him by the way, you've got guys like Barrett who can't get a game at origin but are also better halfbacks than Sam. He's arguably the best halfback in super league though, although I do rate Eastmond very highly.

Pat Richards
well I don't think anyone's going to argue when I say he isn't as good as Israel Folou, is he better than Jarrdyn Hayne? Debatable, it all depends on the situation really, ball in hand it's Hayne, tackling it's Hayne too but if the ball is in the air or you're kicking at goal or you're taking a drop out, you want Pat Richards.

Im not disagreeing with what your saying because i dont think Sam is world class (yet

) but you cant base the fact that a player isnt world class just because someone else is better than him, more than one player can be world class!

If you're the third best stand off in the world (which he isn't as it happens, but even if he was) then you're a very very good stand off, but not worthy of the world class title, because there is a level you haven't reached and others have during your career. We find out who is world class in late October every year, if the Tomkins brothers rip the aussies apart I'll take it back.

You might have a case for Burgess and Ellis, but the Tomkins brothers are in no way shape or form world class. As for Peacock, he still takes it to them at the top level, in a team that's heavily dominated as you say, it's hard to tell because he's never been and played against the very best week in week out, he was certainly world class four years ago when we beat them, maybe he's not there anymore. He had a very big game against us at the weekend, injury and all. Are you saying you wouldn't pick him for England at the end of the year?

I agree and I have said so on the "other forum" that we have missed Hansen more than people appreciate and without Hansen we missed Mossops size and impact. Farrell has done well but the lack of those two reduced our options on the bench considerably.

Dave

On the wing I would have Richards. At FB its Hayne by miles.

Its wierd how much his game suffers from being on the wing, defensively he was very out of sorts in the SOO game. The commentators kept saying its because he wasn't used to playing wing, but then someone pointed out he played there for more than half his first class games!

Richards is just quality winger, fantasic defensively, great in the air, fair bit of pace.

Joel is a fantastic talent. He has a good work rate and is a very strong runner in attack but yet can still put in some very punnishing hits in defence. Some of our second rows only really excel at one or the other, such as Hansen in defense but doesnt offer much in attack, where as Joel can do it all. As he gets older he will fill out even more and will get even better in my opinion. He will definately become a regular for England in my opinion.

That's what's puzzling me about Chris Tuson's selection over Feka. Unless Feka pulled up in the warm-up (which I haven't heard anything about if he did injure himself. He was out there before the game with everyone else) then it's a big error on Madge's part in my view not to play four props in that weather against a big pack like Leeds. I still don't know why Tuson never saw any game time when both Joel and Farrell were off the field. You could argue that a game of that intensity was no place for an untested youngster to make his debut for the club but this game was always going to be like that so why take the risk of putting him on the bench?

It would not have been his debut.

Yeah I don't really get why he came inside so much, perhaps they would be better with him at FB, problem is that NSW's captain Kurt Gidley plays FB. I've not been impressed with Gidley last series or in the first game of this, he must be doing something right because he always gets picked but I don't see it.

He has also played a fair few games for Castleford too, and done well from the games and highlights that I have seen.

Really? I didn't think played for us yet. He's obviously played for Cas already. When did he make his debut then?

Leeds the other year, he also played for us against Cas this year.

As an aside, has there ever been a televised Wigan game in the last two seasons where the commentators haven't mentioned that Joel and Sam are brothers? I'm probably just being narky but they love mentioning it, like 90% of fans didn't know that anyway, and the other 10% couldn't work it out.

...I was joking.

Comparing Richards with Hayne! Seriously ? lol