Gonna get some flak for this but I think Sam Tomkins has been Charnley and his brother apart one of our weaker players in both games.

Now that the screaming has died down I will expand on that. V Samoa he was great on the link-up, always is, but he was suspect, yet again, with the high balls, making two blatant, or more, mistakes and his running out of the ball from kicks he took was not anywhere close to that expected from a world class, let alone worlds BEST? Full Back as some like to claim. V Oz he never instilled me with confidence whenever such kicks were sent his way and in fact the wingers did a far better job of catching them cleanly than he did, Chranley did make a mess of one but he was at least in a position to be able to make an attempt at it........., leave that one there.
Farrell has not done that badly, broken no pots but has competed, he will find that a bigger item V the Kiwi's.
J Tomkins did OK V Oz, but he was the one defending 'RU' style that allowed Jennings to break and score the first try for them, Sam's tackle was ineffective, but Jennings, to be fair is good, and makes many defenders look poor in such situations.
I believe we have to confront strength with the same, we require larger second rowers who can match the kiwi's, sadly in my opinion that should exclude both Farrell and Tomkins.

Watkins is a superb athlete, but again not a good tackler. He is like Atkins was front on brave and big enough to handle any other centre or wingman, but his reading of developing play in front of him is desperately poor at best. At Leeds in S/L he can be compensated for in this aspect of his game, but against and facing top class players and out of the Leeds comfort zone he does fall down, however the attacking potential that he has does somewhat compensate and he must be included.

Myself I would still like to see Tomkins at 7 Widdop 6 a combination that would give guile and some extra pace up front, leave the kicking to Widdop too, he very capable of that.
Props I also think they are pretty equal and will do well should they manage to match the kiwi's there, they certainly will power over them so forget that.

My selection would ideally be
Hardaker

Burgess
Watkins
Sarginson
Hall

Widdop
Tomkins

Graham
Clarke
Hill
Ferres
Westerman/Whitehead
O Loughlin

Burgess G
Burgess T
Whitehead/Westerman
Smith
I only nominate Whitehead solely because of the reasons given above.

He is as someone said in the match coverage, the best ball playing forward in the world. If he played for any other team, people would rate him like Ryan Hoffman does. I'll take the opinion of someone who's done what he has in his career over yours.

JP said on today's highlight show that he thought O'Loughlin and Graham were not only the best ball playing forwards in the world right now but the best in the last 20 years. Again, I'd tend to give more credence to Jamie Peacock's opinion than some no mark on an internet forum.

You must be excluding hookers from the category of "ball playing forwards."

I was quoting Jamie Peacock but, at the risk of speaking for him, I would say that is a given as hookers are less forward and more half in the modern game.

I think Ben Kennedy is (was) the best LF in the last 20 yeara. Flanders is excellent but he's no Scully P.