got be the best venue to start the uphill climb will the majority of the wigan crowd that is renown for its rugby heritage be able to lift them,
Peacock was hoping for a leveler with the weather but I expect the ground staff to protract the field from the elements,

got to be a start for Tomkins this time

I would love to see Eastmond and Tomkins given a shot, will not happen though.

In my opinion against the defences we saw last nigh off the cuff players are the way to go as there is often very other way to break there line, but i fully expect Myler and McGuire to hold the halves spots despite the anonymous performances against a gassed French side.

for the sake of the game over here i hope we get hammered next week, then something might get done about it and not papered over.

Sad thing is we continually get hammered and nobody does anything about it, they are all too happy in there comfort zone's earning a living at Red Hall slowly killing what should be a great game.

said it all through the sl playoffs, the general product at present is garbage, best idea ive heard is reducing interchanges from 12 to 6, would open the game back up for skillfull players. can only see a rout next week though.

weve got to stop the imports, i thought the franchise was supposed to help this. we have signed some good players but how many overseas players we got and forget the exemption rule theyre aussies taking our lads places, 2 per team end of, for me and how many have we got

i suppose its about sucess and where we want it, at club level we need imports to be the best now, in the long term and at international level we need less imports, your right, but im not sure any of us, including me would be prepared to go 3 seasons of watching us lose just about every week in the hope that it develops the game for the long term good.

if all the teams had to do it then we have enough talent in our area to cope, untill then we get a rubbish product in sl and a rubbish international team. as for wakefield i want to see us win something before i die and hopefully ive a lot of years in me yet but it looks to me that what we are doing now is making sure we finish high for our next bid at sl. not the clubs fault but a flaw in the franchise sytem imo

the franchise system if i remember right, was meant to be about grass roots development of local talent, but by putting the top 8 points criteria element in it, effectively did the opposite!

but what thurston. lockyear and slater are going to do to myler and mcguire, we can only look forward to!

the best way to open the game back up is to reduce the ten metres back to five.

The ten yard rule was introduced, supposedly to open up opportunities for more threequarter line moves but the reverse has happened.

We no longer require a footballer in order to make ground we just rely on big, fast athletes to make 40 metres then chase a kick hoping for a mistake.

If we deny a player his run up then meterage is cut down, we then have to look for another way of gaining teritory. Ironicaly that has to be via good, fast hands through the threequarter line handling or a Tony Myler/David Topliss/Steve Norton/Mick Crane/Harry Pinner/John Holmes etc. .type of player.

In years gone by every team had one or two such players but the modern game seems to have very little use for them, mores the pity.

id struggle to tell you a good english ball handler! even more so a good english stand off, like you and others im getting bored of the inside ball approach, and the safe kick, yes i still love watching my team but few sl neutral games are doing it for me these days, last night was a breath of fresh air really, because at least the 2 sides tried more than one way to do the job.

Agreed,

Im off to this game as I did the eng v france one, and expect nothing more than a tonking, is it shameful to say im looking forward to seeing the quality of the Aus sides and in particular greg inglis & jarryd hayne, more than the english team and the game they could give the green and golds.

to reduce the defensive line back to 5 wouldn't open up the game at all IMO as the majority of speed of the players today is far quicker and it wouldn't get the chance of getting away from the play the ball, its bad enough that they encroach past the 10 yd line and never get penalized,
if there's a flaw with anything I think its the scrum they never seem to pack in right and is so obvious that they are ready to break up and it's becoming more of a friendly cuddle, bring back contesting in the scrum

im not sure what that tells me about you!

only when I'm falling over legless

After watching the two games, there's clearly a gulf in class, I think we are going to have trouble out wide, maybe pushing ellis into the centres is an option, but if we go into it and try and smash em up in the first quater of an hour, you never know??? The aussies deffo didn't like it.
But I fear the worst!!!

Sorry but we do not have the physical strength the Kiwis posess and trying to "smash them up" would be the biggest mistake we could make.

tell fuifui moimoi, Sam burgess doesn't have the physical strength required. Peacock, Morley, ellis, westwood, burgess, I'd say give em it!!!

No it's not. I've said it before when Jones played for Catalan it isn't often you get to see world class players. I went to the Eng v Fra game and really enjoyed it. I'm hoping to go to Eng v Aus, regardless of the result to watch players like Inglis, Thurston, Hayne live is an opportunity which doesn't often come round. I'll back then English lads even if i don't agree with the side put out but whatever happens i'll just enjoy the match

and that's how it should be, you go to see the best of the best even though it's going to be an uphill climb and then you can say I was there,
I went to watch the Aussies play at Huddersfield when Morley went head hunting, the game was brilliant to watch and it wasn't all cut and dried and how close we got in the end with 12 players was unbelievable

I went to that game as well, we had a real go at them. Don't think Morley should have been sent off, but then again he shouldnt have gone charging out like a bull.

Thought Fielden really stepped up in that game, he was the best forward on the pitch and had to take on the extra workload that Morley would have done.

since then we haven't seemed to do anything to even worry the Aussies, I must admit a good old fashioned wet game would of least give us half a chance, as for the New Zealanders I wouldn't huddle in a circle this time when they do the haka go face to face, hope to make this one

i appreciate the entusiasm that some England supporters are showing but for me the game on Saturday was played at a different skill and intensity level. THe Aussies didnt play that well especially in attack but they will only get better as will NZ. The only chance we have is to play Tomkins and Eastmond at half back.

To be realistic England will not win another game and will be a Aus v NZ final with Australia winning by a big margin in the final.
Final Prediction
Aus 40 - 16 NZ

briscoe
briscoe
smith
ellis
hall
eastmond
tomkins
carvell
moore
morley
peacock
westwood
burgess
wilkin

roby
crabtree
graham
shenton/to rotate with ellis into back row to rest back row or wilkin in centres instead of ellis need size and tuffness

that would be my strongest team

Nice try but I don't think they'll let us have fourteen players on the pitch at once.