And this New Zeland side is far bigger, stronger, and much superior to the injury ravaged side that toured back then.

Burrow is a few years older, and a more known quantity, which makes him easier to handle than back then.

McIlorum played against Lunt in the play offs and played the 80 mins. Lunt was off the field from 15 mins to 65th minute. Hudds pack were overpowered and out played.
Against Leeds in the play off game McIlorum played the 80. Burrow who played at 9 and the Leeds pack were over powered and out played.
Grand Final, Wire played Monaghan and Higham against McIlorum who played the 80 mins. The Wire 9s were anonymous and McIlorum was in consideration for MOM.
It is obvious that McIlorum fits very well into Wigan's well structured and disciplined game plan with Green/Smith at first receiver. He obviously doesn't fit so well into McNamara's shambles of a team.
McIlorum will be in the England set up long after McNamara has gone.

Another buffoon who believes that just because a team won it therefore means that each individual outplayed their opposite number.

I'm surprised you didn't mention the 2010 Grand Final when McIlorum "owned" Roby.

Wigan fans really are a different breed.

GF that Wigan were so dominate in, Wire winning first half, and had the most unfortunate list of injuries in that first half that they simply couldn't carry into the next 40 minutes.

Besides if a player say, received MoM in all 27 rounds and then had a bad playoff, would that mean he was garbage?

Should we have had Goulding, Thornley and Smith in the team because they played in GF winning side?

If Dudson had received MoM should we look to stealing him off Wales to replace one of the Burgess lads?

Yed, I think you have hit the nail on the head. There's quite a few very, very good but not truly outstanding players there but add them together and work to their strengths as well as a controlled game plan and you have an excellent Wigan side. Played to the strength of the sum of the parts within and they dominated the game last year with all the silverware.

FWIW I agree with the Wigan poster that McNamara has a big part in this. He hasn't got the best out of the players as his plan is what he has come up with and they can't adapt to it in which case McNamara needs to look at what he has got and evolve the team to get the best out of the sum of the parts (doesn't help having no true half backs though and whilst I admire Sinfield greatly I don't believe for a minute he is an international class half back and the less said about the random hothead lunatic at six the better).

Burrow should have played number 7 all through the tournament. Personally I would have picked partnerships that play together for there respected club sides. Id have picked Maguire and Burrow 6 and 7, Goulding and Charnley together, and even Watkins and Hall although they play opposite sides for Leeds, they would still have a good understanding of eachother.

The hooker debate, im biased, but personally I see what McIlorum does for us every week, for the last 3 seasons he has been outstanding, he's a hard worker and very underrated as rugby player, people dont realise just how much he contributes to Wigans attack, not just the defensive side of the game. Id start him with Roby off the bench, and Burrow at 7.

I'm one of McGuires biggest fans but to suggest he should be England's starting 6 is crazy, he's only just come back from a broken leg and still only looked half fit when he returned.

My mistake, I had genuinely forgot he had been injured.

I still stand by the other 2 partnerships and Burrow at 7.

The defensive side of the his game where he is 2nd highest in the list of missed tackles?

Strange how many underrated players save all their best games for private viewings of their own fans when the cameras aren't there.

If your playing hooker for 80 minutes and most weeks are in the top 3 tackle makers, your bound to miss some, if your so big on stats have a look at his tackles to missed tackles percentage. He makes a huge amount of tackles every week.

Get over it, you really hate the bloke dont you? Or is it Wigan's very shiny trophy cabinet still keeping you up at night in cold sweats that is upsetting you?

Mainly final's ours actually. Hardly a private viewing

The play offs weren't private viewing where they?

Lunt

Sinfield/Burrow (they shared the hooking role didn't they? )

Higham/Monaghan

All played off the park in consecutive weeks by McIlorum who overall was Wigans best player in the play off series.

Did McIllorum play Wire off the park when we played Huddersfield, wow no wonder Mc picked him

Burrow.

Ive never seen McIlorum play anyone 'off the park'. He doesnt do anything special, he's pedestrian. Wigan have produced some great players, he's not one of them.

I've lost you?

We played Hudds, Leeds and Wire during the play offs and McIlorum outplayed his opposite number quite comfortably in each game.

I've got a secret, number 9's don't play 1 v 1 against their opposite numbers. Ssssshhhhhhhh. Don't tell anyone.

You guys wish they did, it'd be the only positional battle you'd stand a chance of winning



McIlorum had better games then the hookers for the other teams had in all our play off games. It's pretty straight forward really.

Big game player much like a lot of his Wigan colleagues.

Like the baffoon bit, if you disagree that's fine, personal insults on a forum based on opinions are not needed.
If a team wins a game it usually means that they have outplayed their opposition.
That's team wise as well as individuals.
There may have been Wire players who outplayed their Wigan opposites in the GF but Higham and Monaghan weren't amongst them.
The two Wire 9s, Lunt and Burrow came nowhere near the level of performance that McIlorum produced in the play offs and GF.
That doesn't matter a jot in the Intls as they are playing without any tactics or gameplan. The coach doesn't give them any structure not can he motivate his players.
Roby will probably do the 80 in both the semi and final if we make it. Also I hope that Burrow is in the 17 somewhere as he can always pull out a good run and dislodge the opposition defences.

How is that, only 3 playoff games had McIllorum in, all the other games not involving wigan could have had a hooking masterclass? Wigan didn't win because of McIllorum.

I never said Wigan won due to McIlorum.
Wigan won because they were the better team on the night.
McIlorum played very well and was in consideration for MOM.

If we looked back at the 1,2,3 voting we have on our board for each of the play off games I'm pretty sure he was in most peoples for each game. I know a lot of Wigan fans thought he should have been the Harry Sunderland trophy winner as well. I actually didn't but I thought he should have got it in 2010 when he was magnificent against the great Keiron Cunningham and James Roby.

It's made me smile on here over the past couple of days reading how under-rated he is by opposition fans. He is one of Wigan's best 3 players in my opinion and in a lot of other Wigan fans opinions and we watch him week in week out. We wouldn't say that if it wasn't the case because we have no reason to rate him as a more important player for us then the likes of Charnley, Green, Smith, Farrell etc which I do. Ask me now who I'd least like to lose from our squad and after Sean O'Loughlin he'd be at the top of my list.

I'm going to leave it at that anyway because there's no point keep going over it. He'll do for me and I look forward to watching him continuing to turn up in the big games for the double winning champions next year

He's got a big game in Sydney to play in at the end of Feb whilst Lunt, Higham, Houghton and any other pretenders will be freezing their nuts off playing in one of superleagues 27 friendly rounds.

Higham might not be playing in a WCC but he won't be freezing his nuts off, we preseason in Aus don't you know

Ok if he's so good, what are his great strengths? Kicking? No. Speed? No. Creativity? No. Power? No. Tackling? A bit. Distribution? A bit. What am I missing that Wigan fans only can see?