Surely Sneyd would be a better choice?

He's not even been the best half at Warrington. Bennett has probably picked himon the back of his performance against Brisbane

Samoa (and indeed Tonga) always seem to be light in the halves as well. Asiatia is a second-rower, not a half, although I admit he did very well when pressed into emergency service in the halves the other week in a game I watched.

Brown is yesterday's man, and I can't believe Sneyd hasn't been given a shot. Has Bennett been listening to Garry Schofield?

With the change in eligibility rules that allows players to play for '2nd tier' Nations if not selected by Aus/NZ/England, and the respective strength of the NRL and Super League competitions, there's a real possibility England could really struggle to maintain their top 3 status.
The Samoa, Tonga and Fiji teams will each have around 8 to 10 players who are genuine contenders for Aus/NZ honours - including a number who've represented Aus/NZ previously.
It's going to make for probably our most competitive World Cup ever - really looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

Really looking forward to watching the group B games with NZ, Samoa, Tonga and Scotland.

If your watching Canberra and you think Whitehead is the form back rower in the comp you must be closing your eyes when Josh Papalii is on screen.

Asiata is an exciting talent. Don't forget they have Ben Roberts from Cas to call upon too.

It looks like Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and PNG have decided it's too expensive to fly Super League players over, which is a shame they don't have the funds for that. Ashton Sims, Ben Murdoch-Masila, Junior Moors, Paul Aiton among a few others will be added to their line ups for the World Cup.

Which hopefully bodes well for a competitive tournament, some good players mentioned!

Thankfully for Castleford, who would probably have lost Moors, Sene-Lafeo and Roberts (although he is injured again anyway) in addition to the three already playing for England.

sika manu was due to go but picked up a 2 game ban instead

The RLIF should be paying for the expenses of these players.

As I alluded to earlier, I genuinely believe England could be knocked off their perch by one of the Pacific nations - I could see them being knocked out of the World Cup at the expense of a Samoa/Tonga. Would be a disaster for England, but a real leg up for international RL.

Paid my three quid, looking forward to it!

I think we will be fine come the WC should we have no serious injuries to key men, our first choice 17 looks pretty good. We will miss Widdop for this test against Samoa the form he is in. and would have been nice to see him get game time alongside Gale, with it likely to be the WC half back partnership. It wouldn't be a huge shock to see us lose this test though, Samoa have a good squad that could compete well with all three major nations on any given day.

For any of the Australian based posters, is the England game being shown live on Aussie TV?

Have you got a 49p off discount code?

I would imagine all the internationals are. Every NRL game is on tv and there is no NRL this weekend so they will have plenty of schedules to fill.

Yes, on Fox League

I dont go for this.
We are well behind Aussie but, not so far away from NZ.
Freak results happen in sport (Scotland v NZ being a good example) but, I would expect some progress this season.
Bennett is a proven winner and we will be there or thereabouts when it matters.
(I'm not expecting us to win the final though)

Samoa and Tonga look the strongest they've ever been. One of them could well turn over England or New Zealand.

If Fiji is at full strength, and Jarryd Hayne chooses to play for Fiji (which he should, because his father was born in Fiji, and he opted for Fiji in the Olympic 7s rugby union) then Fiji will surely be 3rd or 4th in the WC.

I'm not sure how England being beaten by Samoa or whoever would boost international RL. The biggest boost the game could get by far is England beating Australia when it counts - that would get the attention of everyone, even here in Oz where most people regard internationals as a waste of time even given NZ's pretty good record against them in recent years.

100% this. I think for Australia to care about IRL - it needs to be put under threat as the leader of IRL on a consistent basis.

Got to hand it to Mal Meninga for doing all he can to try to restore some pride and passion into the cause. Bad news is that they've still been the team to beat even with everyone involved only half-arsing it.

Dammit, i can't find it on mobdro