I hope that was a subtle joke.

That's fair enough, and I hope he benefits from the experience. But I remain sceptical that there aren't better players in super league that could take his place.

Playing with better players will help him, though he may get cruelly exposed. I think he is a second rower/potential prop and is being played out of position. If he pulls on a shirt he will get my critical support, everyone can and should improve IMO.

Well done for him for getting picked, make the most of it. He is now our best advert for Quins RL.

Anyone who plays pro RL is a hero to me, the effort and knocks they take are awesome.

I have two opinions on this, one, from a harlequins supporter, I'm proud one of our team has managed to get himself into the squad.
Then I have my opinion on him playing for England. Personally, you could be critical, or you could see, Clubb, just like Louie, play with pride. Clubb will be proud to be representing England when he gets to pull on that jersey. He's scored for England twice in two appearences (Yes, Wales and Cumbria, but ohwell) He is physically big enough and strong enough.
Clubb's line defense isn't as bad as you all think. He misses most tackles when, like said before, he jumps out of the line at times to get a big hit. This obviously won't work against the big guns, as it doesn't work for SL. He is learning, I like to 'monitor' our players when I see them play. I like to almost rate them, so i watch who is making this mistakes, how the defensive line is, who's out of place, who's missing the tackles. You all think he really is a bad choice, he isn't. You put him outside of a touch second rower, thats effectively two second rower's together. It would work.
And Dave, you constantly go on and on about his speed. Give it a rest mate. He isn't that slow. He could out run you, he was faster when he was younger, but he was also a lot smaller in size, he's bulked up in the last few seasons (which is why everyone now see's him as a second rower), the fact is, he isn't slow. When he puts his head down he is surprisingly fast. For example, against Warrington(?) he got the ball and ran straight, many people were complaining he didn't pass, if you remember it from that. You could see his speed, his accelaration was surprisingly fast.
Just give it a rest mate.

Stopped reading here, you really have lost all credibility

Scratching post for you, mate!

Congrats to Tony, but in all honesty it really doesn't reflect too well on the England squad that he can find a place in it.

Who else could they have picked-Gleeson tried and failed(I suspect a bad apple also), Smith at Leeds, Yeaman
at Hull-Maybe the coaching team is looking to the future

Yet with all the crap you spout you demand your posts to be accepted.
Hmm.

listy look at the stats!!!!
gleeson v Clubb
yep missed tackles count is high but check out the rest
mtrs made 1860 v 2500
tackles made 295 v 515
missed 17 92
tackles bust 48 57
offloads 22 47
tries 9 5
assists 4 9

all in all yep he needs to improve his defence but this is in a squad that had second worse defence in the league compaired to a player that was in a squad with the best defence in the league
so he carried the ball more, made more mtrs, pased it more, was not as greedy and made 66% more tackles than the other bloke
Please dont think am knocking gleeson but makes Tony look pretty good when he is in a team that got spanked a lt last year

And we wonder why no-one want to come play for us when as fans this how we celebrate one of ours gettign an england call up

Thank you mickey!
You backed it all up with stats' as well, hopefully Dave will shut up for once.

A couple of relevant stats were missing from Micky's list, i.e. number of games played and minutes played.

I do think it's a bit sad when our own club's supporters are suggesting one of our own players doesn't deserve his international selection though. He's been involved with the England squad intermittently for the past couple of years and their coaching staff presumably feel his work with them shows the sort of promise and potential they're looking for, regardless of some mediocre displays in a struggling team.

Like Poplar Panther, I've felt for some time now that his ideal position could be prop. He's got to be almost as big as David Mills and looks more powerful than Mills both tackling and with ball in hand. In a team with a lightweight pack I feel he's a bit wasted at centre.

He's not a centre. He might come good in another position, but with him and O'Callaghan on one side we were sitting ducks last season.

Exactly. While Gleeson hasn't been in top form over recent years, this season has been his best for some time IMO, and his form is really peaking at the right time. He is international class, Tony Clubb is not. End of argument.

Funny that, because most people over this season have found themselves agreeing with me.

Clubb would never get an England call up if he played for any other club apart from ours.

What? Not even Bradford!

That must be a joke!!!!

Yawn.

sorry missed it

games played 22 v 27

The likes of Martin Gleeson, Ade Gardner and Paul Wellens have been proven beyond all doubt as being physically inferior to the Australian backline. In simple terms, they lack the pace and strength to compete at the highest level and their technical ability and positional play cannot disguise this fact. There is no point throwing them in again.

England have lacked a competitive centre for many years. Tony Clubb is deceptively fast - I have seen him go the length of the field in 2009 at Wigan - and a very powerful centre who will be hard to combat. It is true he attempts a large number of tackles but so would you if you were alongside a wing partner who was a rookie with limited tackling technique.

Put bluntly if your wing partner was conceding three to five tries a game, which O'Callaghan was at the start of the season, you would go in yourself. You might miss a few. But defending v 1 man is possible and v 2 isn't on your own.

Congratulations to Tony, he is an England International, rather than an Internet chatroom warrior. I am proud of him despite the sneers from his unequals on here - unless they are at the top of their profession? I doubt it.

Heh, another supporter of the use of the most pathetic argument in existence. You and tim should be mates. I assume you won't be commenting on any rugby league matter in the future seeing as you aren't a professional player, therefore cannot offer an opinion on anything going on in the game?

Like many I initially raised an eyebrow at the news of Clubby's selection (mainly from defence concerns) but decently reasoned stuff like this and Tim's observation that we tend to miss the good things he does made me think again. He really is deceptively fast and lays on tries when it looks like the move has broken down. There are very few watch as closely and as astutely as Tim, as analytically as wire quin and as rationally as markrammond. They've convinced me. I'll be celebrating the selection with an altered perspective.

I don't think he's ideal for prop yet, maybe in 5 years time, it would be a waste of his physical talents to have him chugging up the middle. For me his ideal position is as a powerful running second-rower, who can run out wide, if he can develop his defence he can be a Chris Joynt like second-row, comfortable with ball in hand linking in with the centres, but also hoovering up the defensive work. We know he has that powerful running game, but that's not the way we play in the forwards, we're pedestrian and underpowered, Mac favoured grafters, but we never had any go forward or kicking game so they were always under the kosh in defence and starting the attack too far down the field.

Don't let these embarrassing, biased believists sway you. Make up your own opinions.

P.S you might be interested to know that Mark "Rational" Rammond proposed that the club move to Gillingham.