[urlhttp://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=rleague/09/10/01/RUGBYL_England.html[/url and now two more wire players.

Like bridge as a player, but dont see harrison as anything special.

Bridge is a class player who has found his position at centre as has good feet and strength but hasn't got a kicking game to play in the halves. Harrison is one of my favourite players. Big-hitting forward, with a good offload and an incredible work-ethic.

Both are young players who potentially have futures in the national team and will benefit from the experience. I don't expect either to feature in this series although given we are hardly blessed with outside backs, Bridge could be a shout. He is in my opinion much better than Sykes in every position from 1-7.

Agreed.

Can someone explain to me why in a squad 'picked on form' there are more players from tenth placed Warrington than the four eliminated playoff sides put together?

Absolutely no excuse for having a club coach as national team coach and Smith needs to decide where his priorities lie

My team at the moment would be:

1. Briscoe
2. Hall
3. Gleeson
4. Shenton
5. Fox/Briscoe (Fox is a great athlete but not sure about his hands and some of his decision-making)
6. Tompkins
7. Burrow/McGuire (depending on form in next couple of weeks)
8. Morley
9. Moore
10. Peacock
11. Burgess
12. Ellis
13. O'Loughlin
14. Roby
15. Graham
16. Crabtree
17. Westwood

Another back who I'd like to see continue to progress is Welham who seems to be a classy young player already reads the game very well, although maybe isn't a great natural athlete.

Edited as forgot Burgess!

Not a bad analysis, although I personally wouldnt play either Gilmour or Tomkins. Ones well past it, the others not quite there imo
Agree with you totally on Welham, Briscoe and Fox. Briscoe for me looks a phenominal talent but Fox deserves a shot, he's been thereabouts for a couple of years.



Because the talent in those teams is foreign, that wasnt hard to work out was it.



hmm he's only 21, huge and kept Vinnie Anderson out of Warringtons first team pretty much this whole season. Big career in front of the bloke

Maybe, and now the Aussies and Kiwis are definitely worried

A few reasons for you to muse over:
He's picking good players not good teams.
Warrington won the challenge cup, 50% of all the big trophies available.
Less overseas stars than some other teams.
The league position was hampered by an incredibly poor start to the season which even with just a couple of wins would have seen us comfortably in the play-offs.
Others such as Huddersfield and Hull KR consistently choked in the big games throughout the season, whereas Warrington's players seemed to thrive in that environment.
Warrington seem to have more young British talent than most other teams in Cooper, Bridge, Harrison, McCarthey, Blythe, Mitchell, Grix, Riley, Penney, Thompson etc all playing super league this year, and young British talent is ideal for a train-on squad.

But surely it is the players who make up the good teams, even with good overseas players the majority of each English team are English.



1/3 Big trophies, Leeds won the League Leaders shield, the hardest to obtain. To be fair, Warrington did deserve the win, but remember you only really needed to turn up 3 times, Hull KR, Wigan, Huddersfield to win.



Maybe, but you still had King, Monaghan, Andersons and Hicks featuring for a lot of your games, including the trophy win.



Same could be said for every team, with only a few more wins anyone in the top 4 or even 8 could have come first! The fact is they didn't, and therefore have not performed as well and as consistently as other players in the league, who are not even in the train on (which must be 40 players with these in).



Huddersfield knocked St.Helens out of the challenge cup this year, not many teams have done that in the past 10 years! Although Hull KR did choke this year, but that is through a lack of experience.



This is true with all teams, not just Warrington. Wigan, St.Helens, Bradford and Huddersfield can all claim a better reserve side than Warrington, and we haven't seen many other young players come through and get picked, and I doubt we will see players like Mossop and Flanagan of Wigan get in because they ask, like Warrington's can it seems.

To answer a few of your points.

The coach can only pick specific players who have performed well, he couldn't just pick players in proportion of where the teams finish in the league as this wouldn't be the best team. In Aus/NZ, this argument would leave out players like Thurston and Marshall, who didn't make the play-offs but are the best players for each of their international teams.
The league leader's shield isn't a big trophy and very few people could remember who had won it for each of the last 5 years as the grand final is the be all and end all of the league.
Huddersfield were consistently poor in big games such as in the challenge cup final and both their play-off games, and other games that were hyped such as on Sky against Leeds at Galpharm. They played well in the semi albeit against a weakened Saints team. The majority of Giant's English players are honest workmanlike players like Wild, Mason, Jackson etc who perform consistently over the season but are not capable of big game performances to the same degree as class players like O'Loughlin, Morley, Burgess etc who played for teams who finished lower in the league.

I agree with your point about consistency over the season, and am not trying to argue Warrington are actually the best team in the league. The reason I feel it is more appropriate to discount Warrington's early form (5 straight losses) is that these were achieved under James Lowes and as soon as Smith was appointed the team was much better. Other teams had peaks in form but never such a clearcut change as this. The performance of Warrington in the rest of the season after Lowes was sacked, (particularly in the big challenge cup games) suggests that there are quality players in the team.
There is also the most important point to use your example which is that Harrison and Bridge are better than Mossop and Flanaghan at the moment, have had much better seasons and are more suitable to play for England in the short term.

Said it before, say it again.
Harrison kept V. Andersons spot pretty much the whole season and ask a warry fan who they'd rather have from L. Anderson or Harrison.
Harrison every single time. The only back row forward at the club who's better is probably Westwood and thats only because his engine is better. Harrison being young tires and is best spelled

1) paul wellens
2) tom briscoe
3) martin gleeson
4) michael shenton
5) ryan hall
6) danny mcguire
7) rob burrow


adrian morley
9) james roby
10) jamie peacock
11) sam burgess
12) garreth ellis
13) sean o'loughlin

14) james graham
15) jon wilkin
16) leon pryce
17) ben westwood

18) peter fox
19) ritchie myler
20) louis mccarthy scarsbrook
21) scott moore
22) lee gilmour
23) jamie langley
24) eorl crabtree