So if they gave the job to Paul Wellens next year and he went with Aaron Smith at hooker, no fans from other clubs would be calling that out? I suspect they would. That how bizarre a selection McIllorum was.

Wane picked those players, so he's got to take the criticism when it doesn't work out. He took a risk on too many players out of form. Tomkins, Hall, Hill, Cooper, Bateman, McIllorum, Williams, Watkins (As a centre) etc. How many of those were a success? Hill, in that he was better than he usually is in SL and Williams who was excellent. The rest weren't great and didn't justify their selections over better/more in form players.

The Wigan-ness of the squad he picked was always going to be an issue given he's a current employee of Wigan. That was the first mistake, it's not a job you can do well. If he doesn't pick Wigan players for an international he'd be accused of protecting them from injuries, if he does he's accused of bias. He chose to double down on that inevitability and pick players like McIllorum and Cooper and the rest listed above, just bizarre selections.

The final score was close but we were second best from kick off. If Samoa had a better goal kicker and converted their tries we wouldn't have been in a position to square it up.

Conversely, if Makinson, Watkins and Young had scored the tries that they should have done, it would have been an England win.

I like how Cooper is being touted as only selected because he plays for Wigan. He was already in the squad long before Wigan signed him.

Was Welsby a success was Whitehead a success was Tomkins a success was Radley a success was Watkins a success was Young a success they all made mistakes which cost in one way or the other,not all Wigan connected well maybe Tomkins and Welsby.Uptil that game we was playing and winning well so no I dont think it is bizarre the only thing that is bizarre is people like you trying to blame anyone that is Wigan connected unless they play for St Helens.
On a side note if Wellens was the coach and he picked Smith I would bow down to his greater knowledge and if we lost I would not look at playing the blame game.
We lost,you are boring get over it and support the national team.

Had whitehead held on to the ball so we had a kickable drop goal we would all be declaring wane a great coach.

Wane should carry on as coach for me

Seriously need the lasses to pull off a bit of a miracle here or else Saturday is going to be even more cackamallabab than it already is.
Haven't been all that impressed with the Kiwis so far which obviously mean they'll stick sixty on us.

Welsby - No. He will be a great player but he had a poor tournament.

Whitehead was excellent yesterday.

Tomkins has been bang average for a long while and shouldn't have made the squad.

Radley has been very good in the WC. The pass to Crichton was a shocker though.

Watkins should've been in the squad as 2R as he was outstanding for Salford last season playing in that position. He did a good job filling in for Newman but ultimately was found out in the semi as he's lost a yard of pace and his footwork let him down on a couple.of occasions.

The picking of Mcllorum was an absolute disgrace based on his form for Catalans. He's been found out massively in every game and Wane is absolutely culpable for that because he chose him purely on club loyalties.

Welsby should have been playing fullback. He's decent in the halves at Super League level, but most of the stuff he excels at there is the stuff he does from fullback naturally. Cutout passes to the wingers, tip ons and individual running across the field off one of the halfbacks. His kicking game is improving slowly but not a natural part of his game. I think we'd have done a lot better with him at 1 and someone else in the halves.

Agree on the rest, although I think Watkins was injured in the semi final. He seemed to have a real problem and I think that was causing issues. He was struggling to get back the ten in the first quarter of the game.

He picked MM because he wanted aggression in the middle of the park. Having coached him since he was a kid he knew he could trust him.

Was it the right call? Not sure, but MM didn't cost us the game on Saturday.

My point Sale,all them players uptil the semi has had a good tournament they and the rest of the team didnt perform to their respective standard in that semi.
I for one thought Young & Watkins were great as a partnership on that edge but they werent at the races for the semi.
As stated MM didnt lose the semi it was a combination of things.

I did not see any aggressive play from MM, indeed Samoa exposed his lack of fitness so much that even the commentators were asking for him to be given a breather.

I actually thought Tomkins played well and played a good captains role.

Welsby had a bit of a mare, but given he is not the first choice halfback for Saints that is hardly surprising that at international level you can't have a down week.

Watkins was a weird one, looked very decent the first 3 games but just completely switched off in the semi, if he was injured then it was poor of the coaching team to pick him.

Young also had a pretty average game whilst no big errors he made little impact taking the ball forward. Sadly 3 of those were on the same side and got schooled all day long.

The rest of the squad were fine but with such a weak wing they could not hold Samoa out.

Whilst Young had a great tournament. Like you said he had an average SF. However, he made one large error. Dropped a kick when under no pressure which lead to a try. Not blaming him for the SF loss at all but that was a big unforced error.

A combination of things cost us that semi, not one person. However, I would argue that we'd have been at least 2 points better off without MM on the pitch because he offered absolutely nothing other than a few tackles. If he's picked purely on the basis that he can defend then Radley should've started at 9 and Ackers brought on to exploit any tiredness around the ruck.

Quite frankly his inclusion in the squad was one of the worst picks I've seen for a long long time. Is he even in the top 5 or 6 9's eligible for England in SL?

You are quite correct that had slipped my mind. The more I think about it the worse it gets as I'm not sure any of the backs covered themselves in glory.

Makinson ran well most of the match but bombed a sitter at the start of the game, William and Welsby were both a step back from their previous form.

If one of the back line has a better game, then we win. For them all to be off at the same time was maddening.