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.

Let's face it, we pretty much did everything wrong on Saturday and Samoa still only just squeaked past us. A repeat of anything like our PNG performance or the first game against Samoa and I think we win the game with a bit to spare.

The frustrating thing is we know we're good enough to be in that final, we just didn't execute. Would we have beaten the Aussies? Tough call, but I honestly think we'd have got closer than Samoa will (cue Samoans now beating them and me looking rather foolish ).

So there are some big questions to answer for 2025.

Pack - Can we keep big Tom fit and firing for another 3 years and will Walmsley still be going strong by then to add a bit of size to replace the likes of Hill.
Who of the next generation can fill the void left by Whitehead?

What will be the spine options? Tomkins will be long gone, no Lomax, Sneyd, MM (unless Wane still around in which case who knows! ).

Backs - No Hall, Watkins, Makinson (you'd think).

What names are we throwing into the hat? Dodd, Murphy, Gannon.....

Maybe a back 5 of Welsby, Young, Farnworth, Newman, Murphy looks fairly likely based on players I can think of? Anyone else obvious I'm missing?

Looking forward to see how Tyler Dupree develops at Salford. Got size, pace & good hands and think he's got massive potential.

My only gripe with selection was Watkins at centre. This is international rugby league. You cant have a centre whos slower than my dead nan there who also takes 2 weeks to turn around.. He was woefully found out against Samoa. If Percival was playing, we win that game no danger

I almost agree with you there LeBron. KW was one of the form 2nd rows in SL and deserved a squad place in that position. The unfortunate injuries to Percival and Newman meant he was moved into his old position and TBF to him he did an admirable job until the semi. Looks like he was carrying an injury as well so I think he can be cut some slack (although he made a horlicks of the bombed try). And as your mate Konrad found out last season, Tim Lafai is a fair old handful.

The choices at 1,7 & 9 were far more contentious for me and where Wane dropped a major b0ll0ck.

Watkins was concussed very recently and I wonder if that influenced his performance in the semi. He certainly didn't look the same player as in previous games in the tournament.

I think we can all agree that a lot of players made mistakes and taken together that caused the defeat. If any one of those don't happen we win the game. It was a bit of a perfect storm.

I don't have a problem with any of the selections apart from maybe MM at hooker. As has been said already he doesn't really offer any threat from dummy half. I understand the point about his defence maybe being important to take the sting out of the bigger packs but this didn't really work in the semi. Ackers to me looks ok behind a pack that's winning the ruck but not sure about if it's on the back foot. We've gone from having lots of top class options at hooker to virtually none and that's a concern given how fundamental that position is nowadays.

Hopefully the emergency of Dodd, Murphy, Newman, Pryce, Pearce Paul etc will plug some gaps as they mature

Pearce Paul? Newcastle are going to have to work wonders on him. I've never seen him do anything to suggest he'll live up to the potential we're told he has.

Must be because he is a wigan player you think that,you boring person.

As he's a London product, I should be 100% in support of KPP.

Sadly, I'm inclined to agree with Saddened! He has a lot of potential. So do London as a club. But, in both cases, I'm not sure that potential will ever be realised.

(In the case of London, the club: almost definitely not.)

I don’t know. I could be wrong but didn’t he have a pretty disjointed season through injuries and having to fill in at centre? Times I saw him play he was a bit of a handful. Put him in an NRL environment and I think he will kick on