It's alright. He's found some rubbish Aussies to play insteadhttp://www.wiganwarriors.com/WContent.aspx?id

Yes, it will do him the world of good to find out he's good at RU and play in front of an 82,000 crowd for the biggest match-fee of his life, at the same time finding out that their Australians are *rubbish* compared to our Australians. Can't see how that would turn his head at all.

Do you really think he isn't aware of those facts already? Maybe this gets him the chance to play an international match in front of an 82,000 crowd, which he'll never get in RL in this country. If he gets that fix playing for the Barbarians every so often and stays in League, I'm all for it.

Doing well at a Barbarians exhibition and being good at RU are not entirely the same thing in any event.

I think it is a bit harsh to have a go at Tomkins when our half backs did nothing all game apart from the pass that put Hall in.
Our forwards whilst dominated by the Ausies did reasonably well.
Graham, Roby, Wilkin, JJB, and to a lesser extent JP and Westwood played ok for me.
Lockers and Thurston showed how it should be played and ran the show form start to finish.
Tomkins bombed a couple yes but he also took another high bomb pretty well.
Here at Leeds we have our very own Brent Webb who can do similar on a frequent basis.
Widdop to FB and Tomkins in the halves would have been my choice with 20 minutes to go. But then again I`m not the England coach.

He's not exactly weighed down with Grand final winners rings like most of our lads though is he? Have you ever heard the saying "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts" ? Have a think about it and then ask yourself would Danny mcguire, Rob Burrow, Kevin Sinfield, Ryan Bailey, JJB etc swap 5 winners rings for the privilege of having played with Ratboy. I'm just glad the Four Nations is over so I can get back to hating him with my original intensity. He was crap at Elland Road and there's no getting away from it.

As a person Tomkins has done and said very little to endear himself to anyone other than the most ardent Wigan fans and the Sky numpties. Personally I think he needs to grow up a lot. Maybe then (as with James Graham) I might be able to like him a bit more.

As a player though, he is by far the most exciting young British talent I have seen for many, many years. He is tough, fast and elusive. He plays way above his weight and his bravery and commitment defending his line are unquestionable. Of course there are aspects of his game that he will need to work on but I've yet to see a 'complete' player at his age.

The whole may be greater than the sum of its parts, but it helps if the parts are quality to start with.
The game-breaking moments in this year's GF for example were flashes of individual brilliance from Rob Burrow. These are the sort of flashes that the likes of Tomkins can (and frequently does) bring to the game. I'd have him as 'part' of our 'whole' any day of the week.

Actually he's been OK under the high ball all this season. Not the best, but certainly not a great worry. After dropping the first one in this big match it did dent his confidence. Although a few minutes later he did take a great one.

I agree this season he's been letting Richards and Charnley run it back a lot more than I'd like. I thought maybe he had a slight injury towards the end of the season but didn't hear anything about it, Maybe not. He should run it back as often as possible since that's his greatest strength.

Tomkins weakness was exposed at the KC, he was lucky to get away with it then and his luck continued when tries were disallowed following further failures to diffuse kicks

A good coach spotted this weakness and exploited it, a bad coach allowed it to be exposed time and time again

Exactly. You put it a little more succintly than me

No doubt the lad is a talent....but if any SL coach is worth his salt next season he will have his best field kicker practicing those high bombs with a good kick chase from the remainder of his team.

Just have to hope we don't have a biased video ref

After watching a whole season of Wigan matches I've not noticed any greater susceptibility to bombs by Sam Tomkins than most other SL fullbacks. He's not as good as some but better than others. I was trying to get stats for his success rate at catching bombs, but there doesn't seem to be any easily available. However, based on just a count of just general errors, he compares favourably with rlBrent Webbrl and rlBrett Hodgsonrl. Not much difference really.

Oh I'm sure you're right......but the others are not the major threat that Tomkins is attacking from FB and therefore it's not [ias[/i paramount to test them in this same specific way.
The lad has to be negated by the opposition somehow and I think the New Zealanders and especially the Aussies have shown how best to do that.

It's not just the high kick, but the accompanying kick chase that has to be perfected.

I thought, discounting the couple of errors, it was striking how quickly the Aussies got men around Tomkins when he fielded kicks to shut down his threat on the counter attack. It was clearly a threat they were aware of and they handled it very well. In credit to Sam Tomkins, its probably been a while since we had a player that the Aussies felt motivated to single out tactically in that way. If you leave the kid a gap in your line he'll be gone and he's lethal when he gets into broken field situations. You have to give some credit to the Aussies for not letting that happen.