Going forward tomkins should come in for widdop in the halves. Give him a free role to do what he wants, with smith controlling the game liks today. Hardaker still at fullback. That spine gives you pefect balance of everything.

It'll do for me.

I don't have a Wigan vs Leeds hat on when I say we need more from Hardaker in attack. I think he's a fantastic player but he needs to bring more. In fairness to him I think he can and will get better and better. A dry track would be a good starting point for him and all the backs.

Hardakers defence in this series has been world class. But in comparison his kick returns and link up play against NZ has been average. Did not look good chiming into the line amd got knocked about a bit in kick return but iam sure leeds are working on that. They are not the sort of team that would not be working on a players weak points.

Defence wins you games/keeps you in games.

Hardaker has to be at Fullback.

Get Tomkins in the halves

which kind of proves my point about the national side been about who your club team is rather than your individual skills, jerry has played this way for years, but has never even been considered for an international shirt until this year, simply because (as with burgess,although he's a good player) as soon as a decent prospect from Wigan or Leeds breaks into their teams,they automatically move up the pecking order.
i'm not saying that these lads aren't good enough but the fact that players from other clubs get overlooked says it all, williams (who i thought looked completely out of his depth but had to play because he's from wigan) and bateman are both good examples, both good players, but as soon as they have a few games for wigan they are both then talked up for international honours, yet holmes, at cas, has been consistently good for a few years and never gets a look in.

Can all of these people who are talking about Tomkins have to be in the team tell me what exactly he will be doing at either full back or half back.

Is it his kicking game ?
His passing and distribution ?

His organising ?

Or is based on how he was a great attacking full back from a couple of years ago in SL?

Now i am not saying he should not be in the team

BUT

he has to earn his place and then see where he will be playing.

If he spends all season at Full back for Wigan he should not be anywhere near the halves for the internationals unless it is the old he plays for a top team we have to put him in somewhere ala Bateman at centre.

Does anyone still think that was a good idea.?

I'd play Tomkins off the bench to add something in attack in the last 20 minutes or if we are trailing. We need a back on the bench.

Hardaker has done something throughout this test series which I think hardly ever gets mentioned and is a mainstay of a modern Fullback's role.

He's called the defensive plays incredibly well.

As a Fullback, you have to martial your team, read the plays and tell players where to go to nullify the oppositions advantage.

When there has been an overlap, he's been there.

Nightingale learned that for his try, after being magnifecently banged previously, but he should never have been allowed to get there if Watkins had held his ground.

Watkins just had a bad day today.

We're a decent team, I like the camaraderie between the players, I'm not a fan of Steve Mac, but who else has instilled that?

You realise Bateman spent most of last season playing centre don't you?

If McGillvary is going to make it to the team full time he needs to work on his defensive positioning, he got badly sucked in on the first try and there were a few other occasions in the first half where he was following the ball, not the man he should be covering. Going forward he looks great, I hope the England coaching team can help him improve down the path. I'd hope they give all the England squad and those on the fringes the same kind of advice.

Big difference between that and stepping up to being an international..

He offers very little offensively IMHO

If you look at it he was covering inside because the inside players were all sucked in.

I agree it needs to be worked on but he probably needs better defenders inside him as well.

With their last try he was the only player left covering his side of the pitch e everyone else got sucked towards the posts.

I do agree with the gist of your post though.

McGillvery was playing swing defence which requires him to move infield and adopt a position which is almost that of a second full back.

The positional stuff you mention comes from St McNm

Hall went walkabout for the Kiwis try last wk, he also got caught out of position twice on kicks through behind him and jogged back for the one he got pushed out the back.
Whilst Jerry committed similar position wise he offers more than Hall going forward, personally I'd rather have jerry & Tom Briscoe

McGillvary and Smith both had great games, excellent decision to bring them into the team.

I think George Burgess, Sam Burgess, Jack Reed and Sam Tomkins can all come into the squad and add something next year to give us the best chance of winning the four nations in a long time.

I think McNamarra should get a contract to the end of the next World Cup.

Great we won the series, albeit against a toothless Kiwi side it has to be said, but surely off the back of that people can't seriously believe Mcnamara is the man to take us forward against full strength Kiwi and Aussie sides? For me he has done a decent job overall, and if his reign ends now as it should imo at least it ends on a decent note.Of course he will now sign a new deal to the end of 2017, we will fall just short in the 4 nations and WC and all be on here harking back to 2015 when we should have changed the coaching team and moved on.

Never been a big fan of McNamara but, he got this one spot on.
You could argue that Smith should have played the full series but his kicking game alone made a huge difference yesterday and McGilvary was excellent.
The guy is just a powerhouse and certainly offered more than Burgess coming away from our line.
The Kiwis had to work very hard to contain him.

Having been to the first 2 tests, it seems that I chose badly both in terms of the game and the atmosphere.
Much better all round yesterday. Decent game and a great result.

As I said earlier MC Namara has the wings playing a swing or pendulum defence which requires the wingers to move infield much further than they would normally, McGillvery doesn't do that for Huddersfield

Yes that's one thing he deserves credit for to be fair. I don't think he should carry on but when you think back previous coaches and to the big Leeds/Saints squad divide at the 2008 World Cup then the spirit and team unity in the last few years has improved massively.

Tbf to Hall, he's been playing every week and been doing a ton of work bringing the ball back and had less support from his fellow winger the first two games. McGillivery was able to come in fresh.

What was disappointing was the fact Luke did the same kick three times all on the 4th tackle IIRC and Hall failed to grasp what was going to happen and drop back a smidge, whilst you can excuse a little fatigue if he had sprinted back instead of jogged we wouldn't have had to drop out from between the sticks. That's the difference between winning & losing.

ermm, Im pretty confident it isnt the difference between winning and losing.


Hall is the only three-quarter to play well in all three games, though a large reason for that is his ability in bringing the ball up and taking the hits on exit sets etc, none of them really got a chance going forward in the first two games.

Been saying he had the game for international Rugby League since before the test squad was selected

This isn't a rare thing, most sides nowadays will have the open side winger come infield somewhat when defending a tight blind side (because you can't have the winger drop without giving the attack an overlap). The fact this doesn't happen at Huddersfield should be more of concern to Huddersfield fans than anyone else.




Wingers start dropping back on the 4th if on a big open side. For Hall to be in position for that kick, he has to drop on 3rd. Besides, Hall drops back and New Zealand have an overlap and put it through the hands. They either score or get a quick PTB to kick off next tackle, with Hardaker and McGilvary having to change position last minute to compensate for Hall being stuck in the defensive line having just made a tackle. It's really not as simple as you make out; nothing wrong with giving up 10 metres to dramatically reduce the risk of them scoring.

Huddersfield play a system that doesn't require a pendulum defence, their defensive record last year suggests they don't need to be worried about it either!