No O'Loughlin or Smith, but Bateman, Farrell, Sarginson and Williams included. With my Wigan hat on, I'm pleased that Lockers has been left out, it will let him have the full off season to put his feet up and fully recover - the first for a while!

Agreed, with an England hat on I think SOL would have been too much of a risk. He not played enough and is well short of match fitness, to be expected to perform against Australia & NZ given the number of games he has missed recently would be a big gamble.

Yep, I think the Wigan contingent is a well thought out selection, given the injury doubts to a number of our lads, but I do think there are a few strange selections from elsewhere.

I'm concerned at the loss of SOL, but that was always going to be the case (who [iis[/i going to be captain?) and I suspect last year's tests will be his last stint in an England shirt.
I've more faith in Bennett than the Banana (we won last year's test despite not because of) so just prepared to raise a quizzical eyebrow for the moment & let them get on with it.

(and be careful if you're booking parking at the Ricoh, lots of sites pretending to be "official" & affiliated to the stadium - they're not. Ring the booking office & you're directed to [urlhttp://www.glideparking.com/ricoh-arena[/url).

I would have thought James Graham was the obvious candidate to replace SOL as captain

So would I , but as to who will make the 17 I think there are endless permutations possible. Quite interesting really.

Will there be coaches run from Wigan (either organised by the Club, or anyone else) to Huddersfield for the England game, please?

I've said this somewhere else but people have very short memories of character if they want a ear biting loud scouse mouth for a captain, I couldn't think of a worse captain in the history of sport

He isn't calm enough under pressure to be captain IMO. He's too emotional and at times of crisis, I find him a bit like his mate Jon Wilkin in that his bottom lip goes and he can be a bit sulky.

It's Burgess all the way for me. Aside from those two I can only really think of Hill or Hodgson as potential alternatives.

Ideally the captain is someone who will be on the pitch for the full 80 minutes. You cannot dictate from the dugout.