There's a lot more to defence than tackle percentage decided by opta. Sean O'Loughlin has a similar missed tackle percentage and if anyone calls him a bad defender it's pistols at dawn i'm afraid. What they do is charge up at the ball carrier to stop them in their tracks, this can lead to misses but also oftens stops the other team doing what they intended to do.

McIlorum is great at winning the collision and controlling the ptb, this is very important and isn't show in stats. As people like to point out he hurts the opposition, often legally sometimes illegally but he's more controlled now. He's only been penalised 8 times this season. He also makes great cover tackles, traps people in goal on kick chases, he's basically everywhere in defence.

He's become better in attack as well though. His distribution looks great now.

The main thing is he plays his best in the biggest games, taking on the opposition's biggest best forwards and often winning. His best performances have been in play off games and Grand Finals. Look at the Magic game this year, we were missing O'Loughlin, Farrell, Flower, Clubb, Pettybourne didn't have Joel back yet and McIlorum stood up took it to the Leeds pack dragged them into a fight and won us the game. He was head and shoulders the best player in that game.

Compare that with Clark at Wembley were he got pretty much shown up for me, that's the environment he'll be in for England and I'm not sure he's ready yet.

Having said all that Roby is so good I'm not sure we'll need anyone else. If they're going for an interchange hooker I say start McIlorum bring on Roby but i would be happy to see Roby do the 80. McIlorum should be in the squad ahead of any other hooker though and he will be.

Roby is a no brainer. Head and shoulders above everyone else. I would take Clark as back up.

MM is just the latest in a long line of stupidly overated wigan players.

Regards

King James

Before the WC, I was saying that MM had staked a good claim to get a run in the side.

I was at the Fiji game, he had very little impact for me. Did not do anything massively wrong from what I recall, but I did not see any great disribution or fearsome tackling.

It's always a tough call as GB/England sides always split fans along loyalties to club men.

Do I like MM? No.
Would I have him at Saints? No
Would I give him one more whirl at international level before shutting that door? Maybe

Fiji was a damp squib for him, but one match does not test a player. A full test series will let us know if he is decent enough at that level.

I don't need a full test series to tell me that James Roby for 80 minutes is a better bet than James Roby + A N Other

He's light years ahead of MM

My point is that we know Roby will be fine, but we have to take another player and I would be tempted to take MM as he has only had one shot at international level. Yes he did not impress, but one match or part of a match is not enough to consign him to the bin of international RL.

We did that far too often in the past with our halfbacks.

He does bring something to Wigan, whilst he is not at Roby's level, if Roby was to be injured we would need another 80 minute player and to me that would be MM.


Can I go wash now.

Roby and Lunt