Some shockers in there. Heighington & burgess twin we unfortunately knew would be in it, as he's been training with Graham, Widdop & Burgess the last few weeks.
Brown must have some incriminating pictures of Bennett.
Ratchford I assume was a late call up for Hardaker.
The squad looks as though it was picked months ago.
I'll stick up for tom burgess here, he was in good form before souths season ended and was getting back to his best form. however hill, brown and ratchford should not have been included - i would have had tomkins in before ratchford and watts for hill. kevin brown is the worst selection - if we don't have better than him we might as well not bother. i'm worried that his inclusion means bennett is thinking about moving widdop to full back to replace hardaker. widdop is our best half by some distance, it would be madness to move him. congrats to scott taylor
To me, Shaul would be picked all day long. His ability to cause danger when running the ball, is something England just don't have in their squad, and is probably the only player in the squad capable of seeing a gap and being through it before the defence can set. These stats also don't include the Challenge Cup
the other thing about shaul is that he can score a try through a brilliant piece of off the cuff play. the aussies are great at defending structured attacks, possibly not so good when coming up against maverick players (remember the problems benji marshall caused them, and sean long to some degree). shaul gives you that unpredictability. the argument against him is that he's not a pivot and can't pass well. i'm not sure the full back needs to have that in his game. i don't recall paul wellens and kris radlinski being particularly good at this. i would much prefer my full back to concentrate on support play and timing of runs and of course try scoring.
