Re: England's wingers : Mon Oct 21, 2019 11:24 am  

McGillvary and Hall sum up the British game at the moment. Average players that are past it.

I thought Tomkins still looked a class above the rest in terms of attacking threat although he too was hardly perfect. Williams was Williams, a couple of good touches followed by a lot of running up blind alleys. Blake Austin, well how he was on course for MOS at the half way mark ill never know, he never looked a threat.

It seems that none of the Super League players can play off the cuff. They are all too structured and robotic doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It doesnt help that Wayne Bennet is coaching them. He is way past his sell by date. He doesnt seem to of had a new idea in the last 10/15 years and England/GB should replace him quickly before he sets the national team back any more.

Re: England's wingers : Mon Oct 21, 2019 1:35 pm  

Cruncher wrote:

The problem with the British game in one.

A couple of injuries (or 3 if you count Manfredi) and we're already down to the second-raters.

I’d go as far as to say we’ve not had more depth than this for a long long time, when you consider we’re three good wingers down and still have the quality of McGillvary and Hall to call on. It wasn’t that long ago we were fielding Ade Gardner and Mark Calderwood. They’re not the quickest pair of wingers we’ll have named but both are proven top class performers at the International level. They’ll get us on the front foot carrying the ball from our end and they’re great finishers in the opposition twenty.

Re: England's wingers : Mon Oct 21, 2019 6:17 pm  

Both cracking wingers in the 13 man game (although past their best) but they do their best work close to the line, the whole squad didn’t seem to have been selected for 9s. You need to pick the fastest available players, I would have taken Marshall,Shaul, maybe even Dwyer? None of who would be anywhere near the GB test side.

Re: England's wingers : Mon Oct 21, 2019 6:23 pm  

CobraCraig wrote:

Both cracking wingers in the 13 man game (although past their best) but they do their best work close to the line, the whole squad didn’t seem to have been selected for 9s. You need to pick the fastest available players, I would have taken Marshall,Shaul, maybe even Dwyer? None of who would be anywhere near the GB test side.

Dan Sarginson would have killed it in 9s, so would Gildart, Marshall, Evalds, etc.

The reason I think we played such a crap 9s team is it was part of cost cutting, they’re tried to use all the GB squad bar 1 or 2.

How was Tom Burgess selected for 9s? Milk turns quicker FFS

Re: England's wingers : Mon Oct 21, 2019 6:31 pm  

CobraCraig wrote:

Both cracking wingers in the 13 man game (although past their best) but they do their best work close to the line, the whole squad didn’t seem to have been selected for 9s. You need to pick the fastest available players, I would have taken Marshall,Shaul, maybe even Dwyer? None of who would be anywhere near the GB test side.

Totally agree. If we wanted to win that comp then they needed to pick players ideally suited to it and not just GB back up players to save on air fares and give them a trip down under as a back up prize. Guys like Evalds, Marshall, Dwyer and even somebody like Greg Eden would’ve been ideal but you wouldn’t trust any of them (maybe Evalds) in a 13 a side test match.

It’s only 2 years ago that McGillvary was the best winger in the World Cup and Hall wasn’t far behind. They’ve both been up and down since but if they’re considered our 4th and 5th best wingers now, then we must be doing something right.