Quote: GiantDee " Burrow making up the bench. '"
This isn't park football, it's test match footy. I was suprised burrow was even selected. He doesn't offer what we need at this level. (im a leeds fan btw) He played well against a rabble of a kiwi team in 2007, and did well in the final dead rubber group game against the kiwis in 2008.
Burrow as an impact player wouldn't work. If we are going to go down the impact hooker route, my preference would be for micky mac to start, with roby from the bench. I like the way McIlorum goes about his business and his style suits the opening exchanges of a physical contest against the likes of samoa and NZ. If it's a halfback to provide impact you stick with widdop because of his quality and also his versatility to cover potential injuries in the backs (see warrington gf). Obviously you don't select a player to cover hypothetical injuries, that's just a helpful bonus that he offers.
I'm not an advocate of Banana rotating the team for the sake of testing out players who haven't played. I think he should play the best team, the team he would play in a final against australia and make only the appropriate adjustments for poor performance and injuries.
The only adjustments i would make to the team last week is to bring surgess back in for turgess who over 2 games hasn't done enough to retain his place. Ryan hall has, obviously, so we leave him out purely to select the other winger spot going into the knock out stages. It's difficult to compare briscoe v ireland with charnley v aus, so play them both against fiji and whoever outperforms the other wins their spot for the quarters and should they play poorly, they lose it to the other for the next game.
Hopefully, by the timethe semi and final roll around, our key combinations will have all racked up decent game time together and we'll have a decently well oiled machine. Remember, theres been tournaments in the past where we've practically had a different halves combination every week, and they've just looked like headless chickens.
