Yep. Hopefully from a Leeds perspective we'll have Mik, Tom H, Gannon and Newman involved in the near future. It's a damming indictment on the last decade that there are no England regulars in the current team. In terms of halves and hookers our best chance is young players following the likes of Farnworth and Young and going straight to the NRL. Depressing but true.

I think a few above have hit the nail on the head. I personally think he went for loyalty and experience over those who have been playing well and have been in form. You mentioned Mik against France but he was in the dream team and where was Hill? Lees has performed mikes better than Cooper who has been average for wire and Wigan.

Mcllorum hasn’t been in the top 5 English hookers in super league this year.

Yes we need better players, especially in key positions. But generally the players in form who have played well all year should in my opinion be in the team.

Think we'll just gave to agree to disagree. I'm no Mcllorum fan. He's an absolute grub of a player, but the fact is (in my opinion) none of the hookers you mention are clearly better. Leeming, for instance, is no longer first choice at Leeds. The sad truth is that the best hooker in the league by a country mile no longer plays test rugby. He would have made a difference today. As for Wane, I've no doubt he'll eventually join the mountainous heap of ex England/GB coaches who just didn’t pick the right players. Funny that.

Where are all these players? I don’t see any in SL who would make a great difference. The game down under is light years ahead.

I fully agree with that. Our best players need to play against better players in the best competition to if they are to improve and challenge the Aussies.

An absolute shambles, overlooked by a woeful coach sat up in the stand ranting and raving. The selection of Micky Mac was a predictable disaster his distribution from the PTB was slow he hasn’t the speed to scoot out similar to Roby. As a result of this the forward drives were predictable and slow. Hill and Cooper are too old for high octane test match rugby. Watkins mentally slow and physically slow, Bateman has had a poor season at Wigan. No certain why Wane thought he would improve in test match rugby. Compare the passing and movement between yesterday’s game and Friday nights game. Obviously a startling difference. Sadly if we had have met Australia in the final, potentially could have been a 50/60 point demolition.

Wane going on about composure in the post match press conference whilst looking anything but composed as he burst a blood vessel in the stands during the game.

a one dimensional coach with very little tactical nous picks players who arent good enough.
only one thing was going to happen once they met a decent team

To be fair Wane's also stuck with the perennial problem of not enough class players. While some of those mentioned didn't play well, there aren't exactly a horde of obviously better players not getting a game. On the plus side Welsby, Farnworth and Young look good and are young enough to be around for years. We desperately need a halfback who can kick, and our hooker needs to be better.

We had no decent kicking game, and as ever we seem to be incapable of playing without a ridiculous number of dumb mistakes. Not to mention our defence wasn't great. We would probably have been really exposed by Aus in the final, as I expect Samoa will be.

Speaks volumes that Newman if he was fit would be the only Leeds player seriously in the running for a spot in the England starting side. Oledzki might have done marginally better than some of the forwards Wane picked, but maybe not, and he certainly wouldn't be an automatic pick.

we had a halfback with an excellent kicking game in the squad.
he wasnt picked

He's also not a very good halfback.

I would imagine the reason he wasn't picked is that his defence and running game are not up to it at international level. Lomax would have made a difference, but he was sat at home resting his bicep when he should have been doing that months ago. When I looked at the squad and likely team some of the names raised my eyebrows: Tomkins, Mcllorum, Watkins, Hill and Hall should all be yesterdays men, but then you ask yourself "who else"? The list of candidates is thin to non existent. The England/GB coach always gets it in the neck from fans but generally the man at the top is well qualified. Wane, Bennett, Smith, Noble and Waite all had an established pedigree of success at club level or beyond. Fans (like me) who don't watch every game every week, don't understand the finer technicalities of the game, and don't see the players performing side by side in training, then howl about selection. Mal Reilly was the last national coach who was popular. He had the likes of Hanley, Schofield, Edwards, Gregory, Edwards, Newlove, Connolly, Offiah, Robinson, Davies, Betts and Clarke at his disposal. Until we start producing truly jnternational class players again we'll continue to be also rans.