What if injuries, illness and selfish club bosses had not blocked Australia and England from fielding their best teams?

What would the two teams have looked like?

(I would exclude Jarryd Hayne and Samuel Burgess from consideration because they had decided to leave the code for a rival code of football).


AUSTRALIA

William Slater

Brett Morris, Gregory Inglis, Michael Jennings/Justin Hodges, Darius Boyd

Johnathan Thurston
Cooper Cronk

Paul Gallen
Gregory Bird, Samuel Thaiday
James Tamou, Cameron Smith, Matthew Scott

InterchangeENGLAND

Samuel Tomkins

Ryan Hall, Kallum Watkins/Daniel Sarginson, Jack Reed, Joshua Charnley/Joseph Burgess,

Gareth Widdop
Matthew Smith

Sean O'Loughlin
Ben Westwood, Brett Ferres,
James Graham, James Roby, George Burgess

Interchange: Darryl Clarke, Christopher Hill, Thomas Burgess, Elliot Whitehead


Now which team would have benefited most from full player availability for national selection? Johnathan Thurston alone would probably be worth 12 points for Australia.

What would that have done to the prospects of the English team and the self-confidence of English rugby league players?

So let us all stop moaning about England's narrow loss of a place in the final. The team was lucky that Australia was so weakened.

England will have to improve greatly over the next three years to be able to compete with Australia in the 2017 World Cup.

England will also need the return of the prodigal son Samuel Burgess, and pray that existing stars James Graham, Ryan Hall and Darryl Clarke are not injured, if it is to compete in 2017.

What if you stopped posting pointless threads?

There is a point. You have not grasped it.

England was not humiliated in this series because it was relatively well off, compared to Australia, in terms of available talent being allowed to play for their country.

It may not be so lucky next time.

On the brighter side for England, we now know for sure that James Graham is definitely the world's best prop, the Burgess twins and Christopher Hill are world class, and Darryl Clarke and Daniel Sarginson are stars in the making.

What if my auntie had a diggle, would she be my uncle?

No the point you havent grasped is its RL, players are always injured and unavailable

So pointless speculating

England would still lose, this time by more.

Please, come on, Benjamin surely?

The scoreline would be something like 44-4.

To Australia, obviously.

Ablett should be slung in the mix.

Another ' mystic Meg '

Stick to your facts billy, not mindless speculation

I'd suggest Slater and Thurston may never play England again at their age.

Do the Aussies have enough coming through?

That Golden Boot award to Andrew Farrell was a scandal.

For this year it has to be between James Graham and Shaun Johnson.

There is as much chance of any country being depleted next time, so pointless to speculate

What is up for discussion is should another International tournament take place without neutral officials?

My opinion , NO

If the Brighouse constituency get to gerrymander the golden boot vote again as they did in 2012, then Danny Brough must surely be a shoe-in for 2014?