I like him he slows the game down in the oppositions favour. When he has the ball he likes to arm wrestle and mess about, by the time the ref has shouted held the opposition defence have all reset and then he plays the ball.

You like him too,thats good to know

The obsession with Morgan Knowles also has to stop...

ur

Knowles is twice the player the bottle smasher will ever be. Which is remarkable when you consider Bateman is on 4 times the salary lol

What is remarkable, if Bateman is a good performer how come he hasn't scored any Man of Steel Points yet in his team that have won 4 games.

Knowles has the same amount of MOS points as a nearly-37 year old Tommy Leuluai

But Knowles is playing for the best team since the 86 Kangaroos so doesn't stand out as much to the MOS panel. Tommy plays for a bunch of plodders and looks good if he makes less than 6 knock ons.

Go and read what your own fans on your own forum think of Bateman. Stealing a living, far too light, being bullied, ineffective, only looked half decent at Canberra because Papalii was next to him etc. I could go and quote them all, but I can't be bothered. Bateman wouldn't get in Saints team and he's nowhere near the level Morgan Knowles is at. I don't want this bringing back up if you manage to scrape a win in the derby through us getting 8 cards for regulation tackles like was happening last night either.

You could play with 11 men who all have one arm tied behind their backs and still beat us.

If we do win the derby and Bateman outplays Knowles without cards shown you will have nowhere to hide and must concede Wigan were the better team on the day as I will if we lose.

Oh please. Bateman got outplayed by Bentley who now plays for a relegation team.

Knowles is the best back rower in SL by a massive margin. There is absolutely no debate to this.

Knowles is a good player but not a patch on the guy who made it in the toughest league in the world

For me, Andre Savelio needs to be in the back row for England. He has been outstanding this year

I agree from what I've seen of him. He's certainly in the mix.

Been reading back through all this guff and picked this gem out. Jerry McGillvary is still the incumbent for one wing slot, as proved yesterday and by his nomination for player of the tournament in the last world cup he is a big game player, and while he still has it in him, he is a shoe in for a wing berth, let the others fight it out for the other.

Farrell is the best back rower in SL but not by a massive margin.
When you re-visit this forum can I ask a question. Where was Knowles,did he even play ?.

Jerry is indeed a big game player so should be rightly considered,would like to point out Marshall should have a shout for spot the way he out paced Makinson and the way he played can only help his chances.

And today's showing is why I think that.

Sam is a great captain always talking and barking orders at his players. Great ambassador too.

Great scenes at the end with Wane and his grandkids.

Bring on the World Cup. Come on you England!

Absolutely.

Bateman has been pretty good all season TBF, but wearing a Wigan shirt seemingly makes you a poor player in the eyes of most.

That's just the way it goes in sport. The great players are always the ones that get judged the most. You can't control partisan sports fans, the players have just got to do the talking on the field. Bateman does the talking more often than he doesn't and to a higher quality than most.

Bateman was quality tonight. That’s the Bateman Wigan are paying 200k a year for. Shows what he can do when he has good players around him instead of the dross at Wigan

Quite a few back + forward positions up for grabs but it was a decent performance at this stage especially in the pivots.

Wane only mentioned 2 players that are more or less nailed on for a start after this game in Walmsley and Makinson, think I would agree with that and maybe Tomkins at a push.

Suprised how Wane can get Williams to put in a proper performance after one training session that Powell couldn't do after 6 months, putting in that effort at Halliwell Jones stadium is just rubbing salt into Powells wounds.

the same dross that knocked Stains out of the cup and then went onto win the same cup.

The team is on the whole pretty crap whoever is selected and won’t win the World Cup. I’ll not waste time debating whether should x play instead of y. It’s all a load of .