Defensively, briscoe is the best winger England have...
Whilst i do agree about Tomkins weaknesses, the fact is that as a fullback, the few errors he makes are exagerated due to his position. Billy Slatter cost his team a match in this years state of origin, and cost the aussies the world cup due to his errors. At the end of the day, both players make more tries than they concede.

I will yield to your greater knowledge of Briscoe but when I watched him play for England against Australia at Wembley, he stood on his own line under a kick under no pressure whatsoever and dropped the ball and gifted Australia a try. England might just have won but for that. That's not international standard play.

One mistake makes him not international standard?

In fairness, Briscoe is an excellent defensive full back and he's ok coming into the line, but Tomkins is up another level by comparison.
his elusive running style is astonishing and he has the X factor.
Hodgson is not as good as Tomkins offensively, but IMO he's stronger in defence, but Tomkins on form is worth the admisssion money on his own and he scored one hell of a try at Wakefield this season, try of the season.

People HUGELY exaggerating Tomkins troubles in defence here. He puts bombs down sometimes, so does Slater, including if I remember correcty in the NRL grand final this year. Tomkins makes errors but the only two truly "bad" games he's had in defence that instantly come to mind are the 4 nations final and the Challenge Cup semi against Leeds.

So Lockyer (in his last ever game no less) and Sinfield got the better of him. Not like they're poor kickers.

On last years form im surpriaed Barba didnt top the list, or even Inglis, must have been a close call between those 3 this year. Good times for Oz

Tomkins is the 2nd best fullback in the world, according to the World XIII.

Lost Australia a WC Final, did you start watching RL last week?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un_gzndLF08 for me its gotta be Barba

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un_gzndLF08 for me its gotta be Barba

Barba is as bad as Tomkins defensively.

Watched lots of the doggies this year and thought Barba's defence was solid as a rock in general. Looked like he'd improved massively since last year.

Barba’s a great player don’t get me wrong,

I don’t think either are terrible defensively, just neither are great. Both have a tendency to make some silly silly mistakes and both can have games where they have been got at. I think both have that issue where they will make lots of mistakes all at once rather than spread throughout the year. As a pretty extreme example dropping 5 catches over 2 games and none for the next 9 sticks in the mind more than a player dropping 1 every 2 games, even though both would make the same amount of errors over a ten game period.

Brilliant, another thread where people can exaggerate Tomkins' negative points because they don't like him.

You'd think with some of the comments made that Tomkins dropped kicks all the time yet as all Wigan fans know, he catches the vast majority, including some very difficult ones. He's dropped a few in some high profile games and that's what sticks in people's minds.

No one mentions the Challenge Cup semi final against Saints in 2011 when he was rock solid, took several very difficult catches under pressure, but dropping an incredibly difficult one in the 2012 CC semi final makes him terrible apparently.

If he couldn't deal with kicks, he wouldn't be playing fullback, it's that simple. He isn't a fullback simply because of his attacking play, he's a fullback because that's where he plays his best rugby. The good things he does in defence are conveniently overlooked.

The vast majority of errors that Tomkins makes are the sort you expect from strike players and playmakers and happen when Wigan are attacking.

Erm, what?

Greg Inglis is the best for me.