Completely agree. He is a very good 13 but a makeshift 6 who should only play there (as he does for us) when all other options have been exhausted.

Dave

How is it a step back to pick a side to win the game? This is not about player development. International RL never has been. The development goes on at club level and the International coach should be assembling the squad from the best players that season and if one of them is Gleeson then he should have been in the side.

Even if he is past his best Gleeson has been the form English centre in SL and that should have got him on the plane regardless of him being better earlier in his career or being toward the end of his career.

The point made about partnering Goulding is a good one as well. A canny coach might have taken that into account but just like in soccer we seem to try and pick what the coach thinks is the best set of players rather than the best team.

Dave

Has that time not come though? In my opinion it has. Brown has been awful in the last 2 games and Widdop has been very average which means Tomkins has to play at full back to give us more of a threat. I am no fan of playing players out of position but O'Loughlin at 6 gives us the best chance of winning out of the options available and results in a much stronger team than has been seen in the last 2 games.

www.slstats.org/2004/8/6/Wigan+W ... ll+FC.html

www.slstats.org/2004/8/6/Wigan+W ... ll+FC.html

But if he plays 6 he is also not playing 13. Can't see how that improves our chances. Tomkins is a 6, Lockers a 13 are IMO the best English players in those positions in SL. If we have a problem at FB, find another FB not do the musical chairs thing.

Dave

Still it will be second rate coach McNamara who gets the grief for all this swapping and changing and the expected hammering. I would have had Noble as England coach rather than McNamara.

great shot after the try of the big Wigan lad going bonkers in the England shirt.

Wow 'how if there benefit of the doubt' surely that is when the video ref cant see what is going on, it was eith try or no try

Pathetic all around...


Poor ref and the backs are just sh*te

The forwards look top though, putting big hits in and making ground. Defense looks awful though.

The forwards smashed the Aussies up early doors but the backs are pathetic. They can't even a lay a basic platform to get Sam Tomkins some ball in an attacking position.

If Eastmond had been fit aswell as Pryce(and he'd picked him) and Gleeson got the call his form(and class overall) deserved then we could at least throw a backline out there that might look something above championship class.

I've said previosuly when discussing how good Pat Richards is that he's not a genius or a freak but that he just does the basics right. He has god given attributes like his size but how we as a country can't produce backs of that quality is beyond me! We get all these fiddly little wingers who'll have a crack but ultimatly don't have the size or skills to make a mark at this level.

As for our centres......................

Pat Richards is a freak though. He's a monster of a man.

Today proved locky is not a 6 he's a loose or second row

We already knew that: problem is we don't have any international class half-backs, apart from Sam.

Yes we do. Kyle Eastmond is one. Others may well be waiting in the wings.

Big Ben.

Was on at the end too

Also like Kyle they may be on the treatment table.

he's not really though, he's just a big back, Australia is full of them, check out Lote Tiquiri (sp) and Morris, huge compared to somebody like Goulding or Briscoe. If Lote/Pat/Morris were born and played their junior rugby in England, they'd all be playing second row right now

But the poster I was responding to didn't mention this season; just said there are no other international halfbacks. This season, sure. Injuries. But per se? No. There is Kyle and others too, both known and potentials for the future.

I don't think we need to worry about halfbacks as much as we do centres, wingers and fullbacks.

Hopefully if Sam is to play fullback for you next season he will improve as he gets into the position as he was exposed today for his inexperience. I don't blame him for that. But if he can't make it at fullback then hopefully your coach will return him to halfback and develop his game there as in conjunction with Kyle when both of them have another season of experience behind them we should have a very useful international halfback pairing that will hopefully grow and take control over time.

It could be that Sam plays 6 for us next year alongside Finch at 7.
Roberts could be full back as it will be difficult to give him the 2 shirt and drop Goulding out of the 13.
If Sam did get a season at 6 it still would not solve the h/b problem. Sam would be the running h/b and Finch the play maker. Ideally for Intls Kyle would be 7 but he a running back also. We don't appear to have any English play maker 7s anymore bar Deacon and he isn't going to be in the Intl squad.

Whichever combination we chose for h/b from SamT, Eastmond, McGuire or maybe even Pryce none are play makers. The only one I can think of is Sinfield who can and does play 6 for Leeds when required.
The only other two are Briers and Brough and they won't be let within a 100 miles of the England Intl squad.

And that is exactly the kind of approach which results in us having so few international standard players in the backline: Clubs import into our crucial positions.


Ditto.


That's why I spoke about potentials. I know Saints are trying to teach Kyle to be an organiser but whether that will work I don't know. It's a shame that Matty Smith wasn't more consistent because he was excellent for us against Warrington but disappeared for the two subsequent games yet it is his style of halfback that we sorely need. At present I can't think of another who stands out but there may be young players coming through that I don't know about who could fill the organisational role unless Kyle is able to incorporate it into his play over the coming season. (Speaking here from an international perspective, not a club one btw)

Well yeah, but he wasn't there - the point being Lockers was our best option available. Poor squad selection, even allowing for the limited choices due to injuries, as was pointed out when the squad was announced.

I note the predicted Lockers bashing on various threads, some of it from Wigan fans who should know better.

Personally I'd have thought the shocking 3/4 line - the worst to play for England since the early 80s - would be the focus of the post-match inquest (along with the poor decisions from the officials - the Ozzies may have the best players but their officials actually make ours look good), but instead people are going out of their way to blame a player who was asked to play out of position. Typical.

I'm starting to wonder how much of Kyle we're actually going to see. Is he going to be injured on and off like this right the way through until he goes to RU?

To avoid disappointment, it might be an idea to start planning for life after Kyle right now.

I fear you may be right. Desperately hoping he's got the injuries out of his system now, but have a funny feeling we'll only get half a season out of him again next year.

Real shame if so.

I agree. And I do think we missed him Down Under, but sadly, I think we'd have needed a couple more like him for it to make a major difference.