As a Cas fan it's a win-win situation.

Totally.

Like when Wigan lauded the return of Joel [delCantona[/del Tomkins.

Has done little since he returned and smacked of sheer sentimentality.

I like his beard. Very jealous of that. When I let mine grow that long it just goes curly and I look like someone has glued a poodle to my face.

He's going to miss the start of the season too (6 weeks) also a knee injury.

An intensely irritating interview with England's no.2 full-back has appeared on the BBC website, if you need a reminder what an opportunistic little turd he is...

rlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/35473969rl

I would happily swap his table salt for Warfirin.

What is actually offensive about the article?

He hasn't wasted any time has he

Wonder if he's already sent Bennett a basket of muffins and planning on giving him an apple on the first day of training.

"Please pick me over Zak Sir!"

He might want to think about getting on the pitch for wigan and justifying his signing before he tries to take a spot Zak earned .

Tbf though if Bennett continues with England playing like Aussie's then most of the team will be from Wigan anyway.

One thing about Bennett and England is that there's not a single player who he'd be worried about dropping. He's coached all-time greats on a regular basis, so would hardly be worried if the likes of Tomkins (or Burgess) got peeved at being dropped.

In essence it's a choice between a FB who is defensively strong and links in attack or one who offers the more creative attacking options.
It's really going to be down to what options you have in the halves. If you choose less creative halves you have to make up for it somewhere else, and that would be FB these days (loose forwards are just extra props these days). England had no creativity in the halves against NZ and we looked boring and struggled to move the ball or create any space. If you had the same halves then I can't see any other option than having Tomkins at FB. It plainly didn't work for Zac (or any of the outside backs) going forward the way England set up.
However, if you add Sam and George Burgess up the middle and, dare I say Cuthbertson, then you have the threat up the middle of an offloading game sucking in wider defenders and delaying the defensive line getting set (something we spectacularly failed to do against NZ) then you create a much better structure for a classical linking fullback like Hardaker to free up the rest of the backs - who are very, very good.

Going to be interesting.

I'm as happy as anyone to slag the little turd off, but I'm struggling to see anything in that article to criticise him over.

As DHM says, the lack of creativity in the halves may necessitate Tomkins rather than Hardaker at full back.
Hardakers defence is superb but even for Leeds he was often struggling to effectively fit in to our attack. That is obviously highlighted more so for England where you're not as familiar with the other players. Hopefully he'll improve his ability to link into an attacking line/move, if he does he'll have pretty much everything.

It seems to me it depends on whether you want your full-back to be able to defend. Zak is better in the air (crucial it seems to me when the sides down under rely so much upon bombs in attack) & is a better one on one tackler than ST.
If fit I think both will play, ST will be FB in attack & Zk will be FB when defending.

Bennett will be more familiar with the terrible NRL version of Tomkins than the exciting, pre-crocked Super League version.

That said, if Tomkins does recover some fitness or form then perhaps Bennett will move him up to the halves as he's done with a similar attacking talent - Milford - at the Broncos.

He's an intensely irritating individual but I don't read anything in there other than a player wanting to remind Bennett in particular that he is still out there. Bennett's appointment should have a positive effect on elite players, making them more likely to want to be part of the set up & less likely to take their skills elsewhere.