The new England captain. Wouldn't you know!!!!

Whgo'd have thought, the domestic game's most successful captain of his generation made national captain when Roby and Graham are both ruled out.

If he plays (which in the absence of Widdop it's hard to see him not doing) it's a no-brainer that he's captain.

Hardly surprising. out of any of the club captains who may make the England team he is the most successful @ club level so I dont see why he shoudlnt be given a chance.

He clearly knows how to motivate Leeds.......

He's proven himself to be an excellent captain, so not a shock really.

Hopefully he can lift something shiny in an England shirt in 2013...

not really got a problem with this, much as i dislike him intently in a Whinos shirt, he is a damned good player & motivator.
However i don't consider the upcoming games as any real test & if we don't put put a telephone number past the other teams, questions should be asked of McNamara (well, even [imore[/i questions than currently at least).

He's a fantastic player and I've no problem with him being captain for this series against Wales and France. I do worry though than McBanana is going to stick with him in the halves for next year's World Cup, he's been tried time and time again and he can't compete against the likes of Cronk, Thurston and Marshall.

he's the best skipper in SL and has provided good cover in the past for GB by being able to slot in at 9. therefore I don't see any issues here.
He is also in form and kicking well.
What is there to disagree with in this choice ?

If he was playing badly then that would be a different matter, but at present he would deserve his place in the team.

Tell us more about this - he only started playing in one of his normal positions fairly in the past couple of years and in the 4N last year the majority of England's tries came through him, he was Man of the Match vs New Zealand and effective in the Wembley game.

He's crap at international level.

I'm not sure I'd want him in the team just as a player, but as he is there, he makes sense as a captain absolutely. I won't be arguing next year either (if he is captain then) if we are crap and scrape through the group stages in the WC but go on to win when it matters

What do you define as his "normal" position now though? FWIW the NZ game you refer to I thought they were there for the taking and we let them stay in it for much longer than we should have, and this was down to the Sinfield and Chase partnership IMO. If we'd have had quicker, more structured attack during the spells where we had all the possession we'd have put some decent points on them.

For us to be effective against the Aussies and Kiwis then Tomkins has to get his hands on the ball chiming in from deep, we saw far too little of this during last year's 4N. I think this was due to the halfback combination (Chase being too "off the cuff" as well) and the coaching.

are you really trying to claim that sinfield is "off the cuff"?

Reading not one of your strong points?

Err, no. I remember at the time when watching that game commenting that the HB partnership wasn't working because Sinfield was too slow and Chase was too unstructured and they weren't bringing Tomkins in to the attack enough. For me, come the WC, Widdop needs to be the 6 and someone really needs to put a name on the 7 shirt as there are currently no stand out contenders.

sinfiled & widdop partnership would be my choice

I like the thinking behind pairing Sinfield (a fairly rigid, structured organiser) with a more unpredictable, quicker half back. As a partnership it didn't work. In part because when Chase did the meandering roaming across in front of the Australian or Kiwi defensive line that had served him so well for Cas he just ended up looking like a headless chicken, ran his wide players out of the game and got rid of the depth Tomkins needed. Chase is capable of a plan B, but didn't produce it. I know not why, when his Plan A so transparently doesn't work at Test level.

Given that 6 and 7 are increasingly interchangeable these days, I'd go for Sinfield and Widdop as a first choice pairing. We don't produce top class 7s in this country, at least in part because no SL teams play with any one player consistently in the old scrum half position.

We have to bring Tomkins into the game as much as we can, but we have to do it in the areas that he's most dangerous from, chiming in from deep with runners outside him. That means halves that don't have a liking for hanging onto the ball too much and arcing out wide. Burrow plays like that for Leeds, and it works for Leeds, Chase does similar for Cas (when he isn't too busy trying to engineer an exit). But it doesn't bring a player like Tomkins into the game in the right places, which is why Leuluai and Finch don't do it so much for Wigan. Tomkins is our most dangerous player and the biggest attacking threat we've had at Test level in a long time, so we need to pick halves that allow him to play.

This post pretty much sums up what I think, and I agree that currently sinfield and widdop would be the 1st choice HB pairing, and it's a shame that widdop has required surgery and we can't see it in the upcoming games. It's not, however, a long term option and the lack of depth in those positions is worrying.

He captains a team that's average for 27 games to a grand final win and people moan haha.

I agree that o'loughlin would have been as good or better but give him his chance. Just don't play him at 6!

Should Tompkins be made captain ?

I'll probably get shot down for this but I actually think Sinfield is a better than Lockers.

Different style of 13 but for me with his kicking game and goal kicking he brings more to the side.

He can control a game far better than Lockers and, imo, he's a smarter thinker.

I admire your honesty pal and i totally agree with you on this,but i bet you wouldn't dare stand on the town hall steps in Wigan <if they have one?> and shout that out?
If you did i would envisage a stoning for you just like that scene in the Monty Python film "The Life of Brian"

My name is Brian,so why am I being brought into this.
If I was doing the stoning OK but if not you are wrong to bring my name up.

As for Wigan having a town hall , I do not really know.
I have spent all my life in an exclusive suburb of Wigan named Atherton.