Yes, of course lol

Seriously though, picking the right players for the job is a start and Fox is the right man for job, he should have been picked to start in the WC and also for the opening 2 games of the 4 nations.

This, I'm afraid, is nonsense. Briscoe takes the ball up all the time in SL - in fact it's a strength of his.

What happened in the Aussie game was that on a number of occasions he got in position to take the ball up only to be pushed away by one of his team mates. Whether this was a deliberate move by Smith to try and protect him or not I don't know, but he was trying to get involved and being thwarted. All he needs to overcome that is more experience and self confidence.

5 to welham, nil to Brisc although as you say hard to compare

One stat does stick out (if its a true figure) that Welham made 458 tackles last year



thats a high number for a centre to do , although prob down to him being targetted

Not bad for a player who some say is a defensive liability

Well he didnt come 2nd in the missed tackle stats for nothing

Its all about the percentages dear boy

what happens at kc every friday???

nonsense eh? well what happened in the wales and france games then? he hardly ever came in to acting half, in fact in the france game he made only 1 acting half run in 80 minutes (i still have the games on sky+!). Are you suggesting he was playing to orders not to get involved?

As I said I think the kid is going to be a mainstay of the international side for years in his natural position of CENTRE and at a push I might have tried him inside foxy, but at the moment putting all club biases aside if your looking for a top quality WINGER to do the graft wingers do in the modern game I'd pick foxy everytime.

Most sensible FC & KR fans want to see England do well for the good of our game as a whole but the threads and posts ever since Tom Briscoe & Fox were competing for the same wing spot were initially started as an opportunity to have a go back for us Rovers fans having the bragging rights for a long time demonstrated at Chris1953's thread having a go at Fox for not getting the spot ahead of Briscoe for the Aus game.

After the Aus game I made several posts about why (in my opinion) Tom Briscoe can not cut it as an international winger and gave detailed analysis of why I came to my opinion only for bitter FC fans to gob off without providing any counter opinion other than "he did nothing wrong..."

The England coaching team analysed the Aus game and obviously saw similar things to me and chose to play Fox in the Kiwi game and their decision was vindicated by the result and performance in which Fox played his part. People (in particular FC fans) will point to the fact he shot out of the line when the Kiwis scored yet his centre was nowhere to be seen. Even so, poor decision making can be rectified with good coaching/video analysis which is a small achievable task - selecting players at international level is just because they don't knock-on a lot is a flawed and ridiculous idea.

Fox showed his natural winger instincts by showing good judgment in the bounce of the ball for his first try and showed some quick footwork for his second try. He's a round peg in a round hole and is someone who will make the opposition pay if he gets a chance.

His main attribute he brings to the team is his dummy-half runs. The game plan of utilising Fox and Hall for the first two dummy-half scoots generated momentum for the forwards to flood up the middle channel as the Kiwis were constantly on the back foot - this is the key thing I previously pointed out (and was proved right) why Fox should be playing in the team because Tom Briscoe just doesn't have the speed of Fox - especially scooting from the play-the-ball which is far more important than FC fans would digest.

So Fox plays well, Mrs Barista is left frothing at the mouth because her childish database of quotes were redundant, and numerous FC fans backtrack on their slating of Fox and my totally vindicated pre-match prediction because they've been proved wrong. I went a little OTT with the "close the door on your way out Tom" post but I was simply hammering home that should any FC fan come on this board and slate one of our players then they must expect the same in return and not spit their dummies out when it happens.

Don't get me wrong I have absolutely nothing against Tom Briscoe and I hope goes on to be a great player but I think automatically expecting him to be the next England centre for the next 10 years is a little premature - why? people have stated he's "inexperienced" but so are Tomkins (12 SL games) and Eastmond yet they are in the team on merit. Two things going against the kid are; 1) Being developed under a very poor coach in Agar & 2) Being made out to be something he's not by FC fans - much in the same way that Tommy Lee, Graham Horne were because it didn't do them in the long term.

Anyway, let's hope Briscoe goes on to be a great player and England win on Saturday regardless of who's playing for them...

Hell Zod,you been taking the tablets ?


That was a most interesting post.

20 percent is a high number to miss

20 points out of a possibe 54 is phiss poor

You missed out on more than 20%

Not a lot going by the reports from hull fans last season.

I thought this when watching the 1st half v aus. hard to put into words but the team seem to wrap Briscoe up a fair bit and almost used Shaun Briscoe as cover for Tom. This seemed to be no fault of Tom's but seemed almost a strategy by the England squad. Maybe this was due to the targetting of this side by Ingliss and co that it looked more apparent.

True,but one lives in hope for the future.

read the question dear boy, its every other friday ha ha

Two tries that any winger would have scored and getting caught woefully out of position constitutes fantasic does it?

In all fairness he had a decent game other than costing a try and deserves to keep his place next time but he wasn't that great.

What would you call a winger who was caught out for four tries in just fourty minutes and got substituted at half time then

Why, what happens on the fridays when hull are not at home?

Tom Briscoe

When did that happen?

I suggest you look at the try again. England were dragged over to the far left leaving them heavily outnumbered on the right. Foxy didn't do himself any favours by shooting out but even if he'd have kept to his wing (a la Tom Briscoe again Australia) they would still have scored on his inside.