OK then, in your opinion, which of McIlorum's attributes are stronger than Houghton's equivalent attribute?

Wigan fans have moved on from 'They should play McIlorum to soften the opposition up before bringing on Roby' to 'He has to play the full 80 to be effective', but do not list anything he is effective at apart from aggression.

So, no one apart from Wigan fans rate McIlorum as an international hooker.

Some fancy Burrow on the bench as impact, but some are concerned about his short comings.

Most wish he'd taken Lunt, Houghton, Clarke or Higham on the squad.

Being overly aggressive against the Kiwis will just lead to people in the bin. We need cool heads out there not nutcases.

I'd pick Houghton over McIllorum. This year - I'd take Higham over the pair of them.

I would have actually picked Daryl Clark (if fit) to partner Roby though, that's just me.

Clarke would perhaps have been the best choice to bring a similar contribution as Burrow, without giving up the steel of a proper hooker in defence.
He seems to have been somewhat forgotten about in these threads, though.

Higham was our best player this season by a country mile and was voted so too. Prejudice was the only factor in him not being considered, he was head and shoulders better than McIllorum this year.

Funny how Wane rates McIllorum so highly. But then again, what would a double-winning coach (also responsible for the development of the best crop of home-grown players in a generation or more) know? Especially versus the immense rugby knowledge of the people on here who are convinced he's 'hopelessly outclassed'.

Higham's form astounded me whenever I saw him this year, I agree that on this season alone, he's the outstanding performer at 9.
Obviously his performances over his career have influenced people's opinion. Rightly or wrongly.

It's a completely moot argument, comparing McIlorum to Houghton in this thread, as one is in the England squad and the other isn't, and this is about selection for this weekend. Houghton is a very good player who makes a lot of carries, meters and tackles. If you look at his stats they read very impressively, but what you often see when you have a hooker like that is the rest of the team's stats read less impressively, it's been the same at Saints with Roby for a number of seasons now. McIlorum is more of an all round hooker who's main job is distribution to his halves, he will scoot occassionally but nowhere near as much as Roby, Burrow, Houghton, Higham etc. You look at players like Cam Smith and Robbie Farah, neither of them are likely to have 1 or 2 scoots on every set of 6, is Higham better than those as well?

FWIW I named a team for the semi and didn't include McIlorum in it, I'd rather Roby played for 80 minutes. I'm not really a fan of using an interchange hooker unless you have 2 complimentary styles (i.e. a tough tackling distributor and a scooter), hence why I think McNamara has looked at using Roby and McIlorum, but I don't think there's any need as Roby is a bit of a freak who can has both of these strengths in his game anyway.

I've got no problem at all with people underrating Wigan players, but McIlorum has been Wigan's no. 1 hooker for 4 seasons now, either playing 80 minutes or being spelled with Riddell, Leuluai or Logan Tomkins, and we've won 6 trophies in that time. People seem to be suggesting that this is in spite of McIlorum rather than him contributing to that in any way. Sorry to detract from the thread a bit but there was some utter nonsense being spouted.

With regards to Darryl Clark, I was a bit surprised he never got a run out for the Knights against Samoa. Then again I was a bit confused with a few selections in that game tbh, a 30 year old Cockayne playing in what is supposed to be a development squad in favour of players like Broughton, Jones-Bishop, Lineham and McGillvary was another puzzler.

That is not as daft as it may seem by any means and you have highlighted another player player who is at least as good as McIlorum. There are in fact a number of options behind Roby who you can make a case for, Lunt, Higham, Houghton, Clark, even though it pains me as a Hull fan to say it, Josh Hodgson and have data to support them beyond "he's our 3rd most important player in a champion side". Burrow is something of a special case as he has a style and role all of his own but if we are after more "classical" no 9's then there are many decent players to choose from. Mind you supporters of these other players tend to acknowledge Roby as the undoubted best, which he is, with the curious exception of some members of the McIlorum fan club who seem to operate a different set of measurements and even spout the deluded fantasy that he is somehow better than Roby.

I would also suggest that most opponents most certainly do not see McIlorum as the 3rd most important Wigan player and one to fear - Tompkins obviously, O'Loughlin yes, but then it would be Smith and Green, Charnley and Richards for starters. That is without considering the physical efforts of the rest of the Wigan pack which usually outmuscles its opponents Farrell, Mossop and Hansen for example rank higher amongst their contemporaries in their position than McIlorum and give him more space and time than most to operate in. And he still doesn't stand out.

Wane is hardly going to come out and admit that there are better players out there. He is as biased as they come.

This is getting embarrassing now.

Mcillorum is just not as good as Wigan fans think.
Everyone can see it apart from them.
He's also not shown anything to prove his hard man reputation.
And yes I saw that him standing in the French players leg.
That proves the exact opposite of being tough and hard.

At least we all agree he shouldn't play this weekend.

And yes, Higham was outstanding this year and should have been in the squad but maybe too similar to roby.

McIlorum will be in the 17 no doubt, but he's not fit to lace Isaac Luke's boots.

People who claim Burrow is too small appear to be forgetting that the last time NZ toured over here Burrow was the man of series.