Remember I said as a scrum half, and to be fair he has played well in the limited games I have seen him.

totally disagree with you, wheeler should be given a shot at international rugby, he is an outstanding talent who will go to the very top. alex murphy played against the aussies when he was 18 and he and wheeler are very similar in their style and skill factor.................................if your good enough you're old enough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You also said he wouldn't make it full stop, don't worry it's ok to be wrong

.

As for O'Loughlin, he's always been performed consistently well at International level. He'd probably look even better if we had a scrum half that was anywhere near being creative.

But is he good enough yet? Yes he has a lot of potential and I am sure within a few years he will be playing for England but I think before that is even considered he needs a season of playing regularly in the first team.

yes i think he is good enough, i have seen many players come through over the years and he last time i saw someone with wheelers natural talent was tony myler. and i would certainly go as far as to say that he will be as good as "alexander the great"...............

Are you related to him?

Never,
1) he hasn't got the pace
2) he hasn't got the football brain of Murphy
3) where is going to play?

How are we going to know until we try him? Surely against France that is the best time since he has already played the Dragons and so he will have an idea of what to expect.

So has Sam Tomkins, should we also play him?

Yes!
Player Myler and Tompkins in the halves, sink or swim time boys.
I really rate Wheeler, but at the moment there are people ahead of him at centre and stand off in England and under 23ish.

You clearly haven't seen him play much! On the speed tests he's done on the international squads he's been the fastest, he's also one of the fastest at Saints now.

Oh, and Murph thinks he's a fantastic player, who will be an international.

I'd agree with this, he had a really good game on the wing for saints. He and Eastmond are rapid, I would think they are faster than both of our wingers.

I've seen quite a bit of him, and I posted on another thread he was very quick when he was younger.

However, injuries appear (IMO) to have slowed him down. Whether he can ever regain that "sharpness" I'm not sure.

Good player though, but never a Murphy.

Clough is the cocker who should be given a go. Sensational kid, this lad is hot property and well worthy of a shot in an england fake team

Agree.

I think we should have England Fakes vs England Shams

Could have a potential matchup between Mace the Ace and Stuart Fielden

I will sponsor the game and provide a box for rlfannies, make it happen.

Yup. I'm all for giving him, Wheeler, Myler and a few others a go in France. In fact, I think it would be ideal. But that's just me.

Its not just you, its me too!

What's really needed is an U21 (or U23) team and let them have an Aussie / NZ Tour.

o.k. we would miss the players for about a month but it would give them great experience and let the selectors look at them in a really competitive environment.

I've also advocated for years that every Superleague Club should form an alliance with an NRL club and each year send a player from the Superleague clubs academy to Australia to a 12 month scholarship (maybe an exchange system would work)

Next step, send our academy coaches over there in a similar manner.
If we want the International game to move forward, then things like this have to be done.

I love this game of ours (I'm not JUST a Wigan fan), but tough decisions need to be made.

Rant over.

Thants a great idea, but would teams give up their players? It could become a condition of franchising.
Another thought i had is England U23's v Full senior squad. I think the result could surprise a few.

The problem with that is what is the incentive for the Aussie clubs? Bar the option of picking up our best then there isn't any really? They won't want to send their youth to play in our substandard reserve competition.

Whilst the idea of sending our young coaches to Australia is understandable, again, what is in it for the Aussies? They don't want to train us up to become competition for them, they're too inwards looking for that. Better that the RFL scour the globe for the best training techniques available, taking in football, american sports, etc. They are at the cutting edge and aren't in direct competiton with us and therefore are far more likely to give us information to improve us. If we keep trying to copy the Aussies we'll [ialways [/ibe a step behind them. We need to take these techniques and teach them to the young coaches coming through in a central academy, even if it's only part time and they then work with clubs week in/week out.

I think part of the problem is that we are [itoo [/ifocussed on what the Aussies are doing at times.

It all depends if we (and the Aussies) want competitive International Rugby League.

Do the players want it?

One of he carrots always dangled by Rugby Union is International Rugby.

If we don't do something, then I fear more 2008 World Cup humiliation is ahead of us, and I want us to beat the Aussies before I type my final PM.

You know they don't.

They are quite happy to tonk us every time they play us and then push their own comp as the highest standard.

What's Clive Woodward doing these days?