Actually Brown has been in superb form for Huddersfield this season, and the Huddersfield fans defence of him (me included) stems from this. And the frustration that he simply isnt playing in his own style like he does for the Giants, except in patches where he has looked quite capable at international level.

Has he been good enough this tour? No. Is he the best option we have? Yes.

Quite simply, if he plays his natural game (which is as a quiet organiser and distributer, a facilitator for the flash stuff of others) then it would be ok, and if he was still playing poorly you wouldnt hear anyone complaining about him being dropped...but he isnt the first English half back to fail to take club form to the international stage, in reality he is august company on that mark.

On the other hand I just read this in the SL website abotu Cudjoe:



Pretty impressive really.

Brown is quality. Probably not world class, but he is the current player of the year at one of the top super leauge sides. His performance in the warm up game wasn't good, but he played fairly well against the Kiwis.

Amazing isnt it! Also amazing how people refuse to remove their club blinkers when it comes it international rl

Club blinkers can also blind people to how good someone has been at another club too, dont forget that...

I agree with you on this, it happens countless times where a young British player has a decent game and is immediately branded as a future international star. The Tyrer, Moore and Brown examples are good ones same goes for Aspinwall, Ashley Gibson, Scott Murrell, Carl Ablett and most recently Chris Clarkson.
It puts too much pressure on these young lads when they should be learning their game without the focus and pressure on them to perform week-in week-out at a young age, sadly there isn't a good enough reserve grade for them to play in and so either have to play SL or move to a Championship club where too often their careers falter. Hopefully the dual reg system will help with that but we'll still have to put up with young players being hyped up sadly.

52-4 was the score the last time we played in Melbourne. That game we have Leon Pryce and Rob Burrow at 6 and 7 and Gleeson and Senior in the centres.

This could get very, very ugly.

I wont, said lockers shouldnt be 6 also said i dont think goulding is upto this standard. Plus as coming though the wigan system, I would love to see brown and robinson do well, I think robinson is just about good enough, but I cant take Brown seriously at this level.

As much of a contradiction it is good club form doesnt always translate to International Level Rl, look at long

Every silver lining has a cloud with you doesn’t it?

Yes, we had these players (if you think that those are actually better than those on Sunday which is arguable) but we also had Calderwood and Gardner on the wings while the Aussies had Inglis and Folau in the centres who are miles in front of the two Australian centres playing on Sunday

It's been blatantly obvious to anyone who's watched the last 3 months of SL that Tomkins has been the best player in the league at full-back. That we are now changing the players in three key positions to accomodate him there (dropping our only other regular half in the process) is coaching at it's very worst. Clueless.



Bench looks weak too. That said, the lads have my full support.

and I'm looking forward to seeing how the new caps go at this level.

and the aussies has slater,inglis,thurston & lockyer....


tomorrow,slater & lockyer aside, the rest of the backs are distinctly average and could'nt put 70 or 80 on little PNG.....


but yeah they'll do it against us!!! give ya head a wobble man...

PNG had Glen Nami and Dion Aiye at 6 and 7 and Jessy Joe Parker and Menzie Yere in the centres.

They conceded 42 points. Yet we could "easily" concede 70-80.

I don't know why you don't drop the overly pessimistic "online personality" because when you stick to your actual opinions, rather than what you think your "character" should say, you're worth reading.

i dont see why macnamara doesnt push the 2nd rowers into the cenre position when defending giv us a bit of size and strength out wide i dont see why we cant get a result i think if we keep it tight down the middle be really agressive and play atticking flowing off the cuff rugby we coud get the result but macnamara cant think this tactically i think i should be the next england manager ( i would pick a better selection of players obviously)

Completely agree. I think Gleeson and Senior should have both been on that plane. He could have even played Gleeson as a 6 as opposed to SOL. It's unfortunate that McGuire and Eastmond aren't available, but what can you do if there's not enough strength in depth...

Mc Namara has had some selection nightmares before and during the tour i think. He should have either taken Deacon to give him an organiser at 7, or midseason had a word with Danny Brough to stay with England. When he announced the squad everyone could see we were missing an organiser at 7. Now he announces Sean O at 6. Sean O is a very good loose who i think would go well in the NRL. But he is no stand off imo. I know Widdop had a shaky second half last week but he still has good skills to play 6. Very simple game plan on Saturday then. And again where is the kicking game going to come from (saying that we not had a good kicking game in yonks so no difference there)?

Gleeson should have gone. McGuire and Eastmond are good SL halves but are not the fully rounded 7 that England needs at the moment to give us the organisation. Just because a player is good and flashy in SL does not mean that those skills cross over to the international game.

True, but i'd know who i'd rather have playing at 6/7. Even Deacon, as mentioned before would have been a good shout. I just don't understand why SM didn't pick more players on form. But then again, look at what he did for Bradford. The sooner they give Shaun Wane the job, the better...

Id say almost all the players picked, were picked on form and availablilty.

My God! worst decision ever. All lockers can do is tackle (and he does that by taking the oppositions head off), and back up. There is a tiny glint of hope when crabtree is on the pitch that he may get on the end of an offload but as far as creating something out of nothing goes, Jammer would be a better bet at stand off.

Please quit crapbanana, Terry Mattersons severed finger could do a better job than you.

We have used Burrow, McGuire, Eastmond and Pryce in the past who are all running halves and it has not done much to improve us in the international arena. We do need to choose players on form but they also need to be able to do a job. Sam T will develop into a world class fullback, but because the England selectors did not choose an organising 7 he was forced into a role which does not suit him. Fien does a brilliant organising role for NZ that sorts out the frwards and gives Benji the room he needs. Hes not what i call flashy. Deacon and DB were in form and would have done that job for us. A major error in selection not to take Deacs or convince Broughy to go down under.

o'loughlin in that position

would of been better sticking with brown there.

hope it works...

glad widdop dropped just didnt look upto standard for me.

With lots of Bradford Players, we'd be unstopable. We already have one dingbat from Bradford there, let's take 17.

Quote ="who needs flankers?"My God! worst decision ever. All lockers can do is tackle (and he does that by taking the oppositions head off), and back up. There is a tiny glint of hope when crabtree is on the pitch that he may get on the end of an offload but as far as creating something out of nothing goes, Jammer would be a better bet at stand off. Please quit crapbanana, Terry Mattersons severed finger could do a better job than you. '" www.superleague.co.uk/statistics ... eason=2010 Lockers can do a lot more than tackle. 16 try assists in 24 games from loose compared to 20 in 26 apps for Brown.

Quote ="who needs flankers?"My God! worst decision ever. All lockers can do is tackle (and he does that by taking the oppositions head off), and back up. There is a tiny glint of hope when crabtree is on the pitch that he may get on the end of an offload but as far as creating something out of nothing goes, Jammer would be a better bet at stand off. Please quit crapbanana, Terry Mattersons severed finger could do a better job than you. '" www.superleague.co.uk/statistics ... eason=2010 Lockers can do a lot more than tackle. 16 try assists in 24 games from loose compared to 20 in 26 apps for Brown.

I know how bad are you when a 13 gets picked in front of you in your own position!

To be fair, there are lots of them not upto standard, he has dropped the ones who he can, hope they young lads go well, a lot of pressure for the debutants.

Like the looks of Lunt

Stats are all well and good, but when you are playing in a team that scored 922 points last season, try assists are easy to come by.

The stats also say he made just 30 kicks in general play. If he hasn't had practice putting in kicks at SL level why the hell will we be relying on him to do it at international level. Robinson better have his kicking boots with him Slater must be laughing his ass off. Forget about the cheeky chips over the top and 40 20s we won't have a kicking game.

If I was feeling cynical, i'd have a bet with someone that Tomkins ends up doing most of the attacking kicking, and that he will put in a grubber to the corner which is collected by an aussie winger who goes on to go the full length of the field and score because we don't have a full back because he is doing the kicking because steve crapbanana picked lockers at stand off.

Basically those stats show Lockers is better defensively and Brown is better offensively.