He dropped one out of about 7 and caught the rest, and that one was with a gale force wind in his face and driving rain.
I agree Hardaker should be England full back but don't write Sam Tomkins off just yet, he's only 26 years old playing in a poor team that are missing their best three players, and has just come back from an injury lay off. His defence has been ok, i didn't see him miss a tackle in his last game, even though the warriors were hammered.
It's true he hasn't set the world alight over there and he looks like he just wants to come home, but he's still a class player and I still feel he is worthy of an England spot in the halves alongside Widdop.

i would have Hardaker over Tomkins at FB every day of the week.. even with all his failings.

He is a much more complete player.

Sam Tomkins' form won't have any affect on whether he represents England or not, his name alone ensures he gets picked!

People keep bemoaning our perceived lack of quality in the halves, but should we panic? Look at Cronulla in the NRL. They are going great guns, and, with the greatest respect, their halves are a journeyman (Jeff Robson), and a kid (Jack Bird). Neither look better players to me than (say) the current Wigan halves, or indeed most SL sides. And yet on the back of good go-forward, organised and committed defence, and some skill and pace in their outside backs, the Sharks are going great guns. League is a team game, and there's a lesson there for us all.

I find this Tomkins debate quite interesting. There is no doubt a significant number of people were praying he would fail. If people were expecting him to be the stand out superstar in the NRL that he was in SL they are naive at best.

Wigan's game plan revolved around either creating space for him or using him as a foil to create space on the flanks for others. There's no doubt IMO he is a class player, perhaps at Wigan he looked better than he actually is as everything seem to revolve around him.

At NZW he's not the 'superstar'. SJ has that tag, and rightly so. From what I've seen they have used him in a very different way to what Wigan did. He has been partly used as a link player between the halves and backs, he's been often deployed at dummy half to give the hooker a rest in games. As the game plan doesn't revolve around making space for him to run into it's a no brainier to work out he's not going to make the breaks that everyone remembers him doing over here.

As for his defence, it has improved significantly since he was moved to full back. The stats on errors, missed tackles etc are comparable to Hardaker's. Perception is a strange thing. One huge advantage Hardaker has, which can't be underestimated in today's game is he's bigger. That makes it harder to disrupt him under the high ball and gives him a better chance of making a one on one tackle.

As to who is a better full back. I'm honestly not sure. It would be interesting to see how Hardaker would perform in the same NZW team, as that's not going to happen it's simply individual opinion. I'd like to think we can find room for both of them in the England team. As I said earlier I'd like to see Hardaker at FB and Tomkins at #6. I also wouldn't complain at Hardaker in the centres and Tomkins at FB.

hardaker is a full back, a specialist full back. Tomkins always looked like a six at full back, he never looked liked he enjoyed defending and was certainly not great under the high ball.
hardaker is better at running from deep while Tomkins was certainly better nearer the line.
for me, at full back, i'd have hardaker every time

Jaysus the delusion in this thread. Hardaker is not a better player than Tomkins.

Yes he is.

But that's not what (most) posters are saying, is it?

Next joke.

In this thread? the majority are saying exactly that.