The difference in this case however is that Wigan are the best team in the league because of the performances of people like McIlorum, not despite him. This year his distribution is superb, seems to pick the right pass every time and makes a daft amount of tackles. That isn't because "he's behind a good pack". He's just playing very well.

Agreed, but on the flip side the forwards and the bench is better than the current squad

I disagree. The forwards are similar but I think our back rowers have more impact and are more mobile now than they were then. Farrell was undoubtedly a great player but O'loughlin is becoming an increasing good loose. And I think we could put out a better bench than what we had there for sure.

Correct

And there are three players - Farrell, Cunningham and Sculthorpe who were significantly better than anyone playing today (other than Tomkins).

Sculthorpe out of position was better than any 6 we've currently got (as was Farrell when he played stand-off) and in recent years we've been playing foreigners to try to strengthen the side.

I don't think that 2002 side was very representative though of where standards used to be.

If you look at the 2003 Ashes series, it was a 3-0 whitewash but GB were much more competitive than they are today and who knows what might have happened if Morley hadn't got himself sent off in that first test. (As an aside, Farrell was immense that day and anyone that says he never proved himself at international level needs to sit down and watch that game. One hit he put in on Webcke - during which he stole the ball - will live long in my memory, partly because an Aussie sitting behind me had just been forecasting that Webcke was going to smash the GB pack single handed. I heard barely a peep out of him for the rest of the game.)

This was the 2003 side, from the first test

Radlinski (Wigan); Carney (Wigan), Connolly (Leeds), Senior (Leeds), Horne (Hull); Sculthorpe (St Helens), Long (St Helens); Fielden (Bradford), Newton (Wigan), Morley (Sydney Roosters), Peacock (Bradford), Farrell (Wigan, capt), Forshaw (Bradford). Subs: Anderson (Bradford), McDermott (Leeds), Deacon (Bradford), Gilmour (Bradford).

And then there's this great side from 1992, in an era when we regularly give the Aussies a game

Great Britain: Joe Lydon, Alan Hunte, Gary Connolly, Garry Schofield (c), Martin Offiah, Shaun Edwards, Deryck Fox, Kevin Ward, Martin Dermott, Andy Platt, Denis Betts, Phil Clarke, Ellery Hanley.

Replacements: John Devereux, Alan Tait, Kelvin Skerrett & Richard Eyres

What a pack!