Tomkins is not a Test grade Centre.
He will be targeted and be found wanting badly.

He's still better than Shenton at centre though.

I’m not too sure I buy into this club partnership argument

If the best centre and winger were coincidently from the same club it would be a nice bonus but I think we have to play the best team we can (not the best 13... i.e. don’t play people out of position)

Reading the game defensively is pretty much the same whether you play for the same team or not and I’m very sure that Briscoe and Charnley would love to play outside of centres who give them better ball in attack that Yeaman and Tomkins respectively – Yeaman is by no means a wingers centre as he holds the ball too often and, as someone has stated previously, Tomkins continuously takes Charnley’s line forcing him inside

It could easily be argued that it is more valuable to have an international half back partnership from the same club or a 9 from same club as the rest of the front row so they understand his dummy half play

All in all, I would pick the best team we can muster – again, playing people in their club positions – and expect international players to have the quality to gel as a team

Tomkins' defence at centre is pretty poor. Think he's worth a place in the 17 though.

Absolutely laughable. He's nowhere near as good. He would be a good backrower in the Lee Gilmour mould. Strong, relatively quick, but he's utterly mindless and is very poor defensively.