Quote: Mars "Watkins is currently England's best centre, but you are underestimating Crooks' performances this year with your 'no way on earth statement'. Crooks has almost scored as many tries as Watkins and Moon combined this season, he has more try assists than either of them, made more tackle busts, more clean breaks, more metres per carry and has made more tackles. He's also missed more tackles (although not as a percentage vs. Watkins) and made a couple more errors.
He's played consistently well all season irrespective of age or expectation and people are justified in selecting him for this years dream team.
Watkins is a great talent and will start at right centre for England, but based on this season's performances Crooks isn't far behind.'"
Im not denigrating Crooks performance, I think he has done well and had a good season. He has shown some great potential. But that’s what he has shown right now. Potential. A lot of the judgements of the likes of Crooks and Lineham is on what they have shown the COULD be rather than what they ARE. Crooks has had a very very good season for a youngster breaking in to the first team. I don’t think that if he was the finished article, if he was having this season as a 27 year old I don’t think we would see people pushing him for dream-team inclusion.