24 places & we don't include a scrum-half or a left centre

The squad lacks a bit of balance for me. Too many pivots/hookers and not enough pack men.

For me, I see the line up as; Sam, Charnley, Watkins, Cudjoe, Hall, Chase, Sinfield, Graham, Roby, Hill, Westwood, Burgess, O'Loughlin. Subs of Widdop, Hock, Burgess and Mossop.

Which leaves a full back, winger, two hookers, two back row forwards and a prop.

The thing worrying me is the possibility of Mac playing Sinfield at 13, with Widdop and Chase halves and one of the hookers on the bench. Too many chiefs written all over that, especially with another 'pivot' style fullback in Sam.

I'd have added Crabtree in for McIllorum/Burrow as a minimum

Ferres came off against Wire with suspected broken hand, if that's true, then that will be the reason he didn't make it.

Eorl is a little unlucky but no massive loss.

Richie Myler is the unluckiest for me.

I'd say the squad is pretty much spot on.

I honestly can't see who Crabtree is better than in that squad, he punches well below his weight and struggles to get a decent quick play the ball.

Dress her up as Bodaecea and have her lead the cheers at the England games. On second thoughts, never mind, Bodaecea git beat and enslaved, by the Italians no less.

Hock is a headcase whose discipline is suspect and is likely to get wound up by the opposition, do something crazy and get sent off or sin binned and we will have a difficult enough time winning against the big boys without playing a man short.

The lack of a proper 7 is worrying. Sinfield, Chase and Widdop are stand offs and Burrow is an impact hooker or half. Would have liked to have seen Smith of Wigan in there. Looking to the future (or even now to be honest) i would like to see Smith and Widdop in the halves.

Ratchford for Burrow and Wilkin for Hock would be the only two changes for me.... However I'm reasonably pleased and can't wait for the off!!

Hock might be a head case but if you can see beyond that he's easily a top 10 in the world back rower, proper quality. People let his discipline and drug ban cloud the fact he's a very good player.

Tbf I don't think people dispute he is a very good player. Mostly the worry is that his discipline will bring trouble on us. McIlorum is another I can see causing us problems, if he plays. However, I can guess that McNamara has gone for a set of forwards who will not respect the opposition but get in their faces, assuming they all play to their potential, which IMO is a good option.

So far as halves are concerned, we don't grow them for some reason and while Smith would be great in wet weather and offers us another kicker, I can't see him troubling the Aussies too much, especially on a dry track. Sinfield at least has experience against the internationals which IMO is vital in a home world cup.

The position that most troubles me is centre. I do hope there is going to be a sound defensive structure in place, preferably before the opposition get anywhere near the tryline, because I think our centres will be our weakest links.

Look at the proper mongrel players in that team.

Hock
McIllorum
Ablett
Westwood
Chase (For a hb he can't half mix it)
Burgess x 2 (Tom doesn't seem to have the agression yet)
Graham.

We'll really get into teams faces with those players

Whenever an England RL squad is picked it will always be the centre of mass debate. We all know from experience that Mcnamara likes to throw a few curve balls in his selections and this one is no surprise...there will be certain players though who will now no doubt be under no illusions whatsoever that no matter how well you play you simply will not get picked by this particular coach.

Baffled as to why Crabtree, Lunt and Ratchford especially, are deemed not good enough while others who are, at best, decent club players are .....Ah well, lets get it over with !

Hock T Burgess and Burrow have all been picked for the value they will bring off the bench and we havnt just filled the squad with safe back up options like what Wilkin,Ferres,Myler etc.. would be.

The starting 13 looks to pick itself pretty much from that 24.its good we have some real fire power and options to bring from the bench and really change a game for once in a long while.

Tomkins
Charnley
Watkins
Cudjoe
Hall
Sinfield
Chase
S. Burgess (Start at prop, move to the back row when George comes on)
Roby
Graham
Westwood
Hock
O'Loughlin

Hill
Ablett
Widdop
G. Burgess

He's also a massive handful for any defence, nobody likes playing against Hock, he's as tough as they come, you need x factor players and he is most certainly one of them.

I think its a strong squad overall, you can always make cases for players who missed out but i don't think we can have many arguments. The real surprise for me was young Thomas Burgess over big Earl other than that i think he's picked well.

Anybody doubting Farrell's inclusion should check out his stats on the SL site. The lad is a machine.

Higham should have had a look in too I think.
Roby hasn't played much recently but he will not let anyone down.
Tom burgess is a strange choice. Not seen his performances.
Not a bad squad though.

Tom B's probably a bit lucky but he'd started to look the part for Souths at the end of the season. George should be first choice on the bench and Tom to play only if one of the others gets injured.

As for Hock, I fully understand the risk associated with picking him, but anybody who thinks that England would be better off picking low-risk forwards wants their head examining. To have any chance at all England will need to have forwards with real threat, and Hock at his best has it in spades.

In the past before every tournament we've heard how GB/England's pack is as good as/better than Australia, only to see them wiped out when it matters. For once I think we may have a pack which can hold its own physically, but I still question the ability to read the game in defence and link properly with the backs in attack (especially dummy runners) compared to Australia.

As for the backs, well lets just hope they all play to their best.

To be frank, I think England v Aus will pan out a lot like Souths vs Manly recently - big forwards for England doing quite well, only for the wheels to fall off once the oposition start throwing the ball around.

I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

I appreciate Rangi Chase is a talented player but he was born in New Zealand, was raised in New Zealand, lived the greatest amount of time in New Zealand. He really should be playing for Australia or Samoa.

I am quite happy with the squad selection, think not picking Crabtree was the right decision because although he is a good player he just isn't aggressive enough, which is why I think hock and mcilorum is a good shout as they're Aggressive players who aren't afraid of getting stuck in to anyone and we need that in the side.

good exposure on Talk Sport too last night with McNamara and Tomkins on the show and then a lot of discussion about the squad

Ratchford will show on Saturday that he is one of the very best players in this country.

Could well pick up the Harry Sunderland trophy.

I'm happy with that squad. Lunt is unlucky to miss out, but the only bad choice (imo) is Tom Burgess over Crabtree. Tom isn't even cracking Souths' first team every week when his (pretty much average) brother Luke is.

Good squad, not massively different to what I would go with. I think it’s a pretty well balanced squad as well which possibly explains some of the omissions.

Lunt for example is a very good player, but what do you get from him? An inferior version of Roby in my opinion. Mcilorum on the other hand offers a different type of hooker, possibly not as skilful or as quick around the ruck as Lunt or Roby but bigger, stronger, and a lot more aggressive. Burrow on the other hand is a complete one off who can absolutely destroy a defence.

Similarly with Ratchford v Hardaker, Hardaker will cover you Fullback, Centre and Wing very well, Ratchford fullback centre and stand off. We already have a player capable of playing Fullback centre and Stand off in Widdop, plenty of half back cover with Sinfield and Chase, Tomkins, Burrow, that’s 5 pretty experienced halves, with Roby and O’loughlin able to fill in in a pinch, and if we got really really desperate Ablett has played there before. Im not sure we need another utility half. Whereas on the wing whilst we do have 3 wingers, but if one of them goes down we need to start shifting centres to wing and 2nd rows to centre.

In both those examples its not really a question of who is the better player, but who offers more to the 24 man squad.

The only out and out ‘decisions’ between players I see up for debate is T Burgess ahead of Crabtree, and Farrell ahead of Kirmond and Ferres.