Widdop is English with a stamp in his British Passport allowing him to live in Australia.

Difficult really want is Mark O Meley and his wife have a son while playing for Hull, they then leave 6 months later, the son live in Austrailia for the next 25 years playing NRL, he them moves to England and signs for SL club, would he count on Quota?

Hard to decide if they count or not on the quota if they here born in the UK or have a Britsig passport as you could have never lived in the Uk and still get a passport through your parents.

um billy slater, jarred hayne, nah i think we dont need him thanks

if they make themselves available to play for England they don't count on the quota. lets take a leaf out of Australias book!

and develop some players

Slater will be 27 in a couple of weeks. Hayne is only a year older than Widdop, which was ads7fax's obvious point. And to continue the point, if we don't have Hayne, there's always Dugan and Coote, who are both younger than Widdop.

Coote's try-scoring record and kick-return metres speak for themself. Dugan has already broken into the rep scene and was Man of the Match on debut. And despite going off injured before the 55 minute mark today, he racked up a try, a try-assist, two linebreaks, 14 tackle breaks and ran over 170m.

Hayne deserves to be first choice NSW fullback, but he's got two awesome talents hot on his tail.

darius boyd
mat bowen
todd carney


im too tired to remember the fullbacks of the other nrl teams

widdop is an under 20s player who has had limited NRL experience

england have rushed him into their test line up

the conclusion is pretty obvious

I think it's safe to say Bowen's rep career is all but finished. Still a very capable player, but Queensland and Australia have moved on.

Carney, despite putting in excellent games at fullback, should find himself in the halves if he ever cracks Origin or above.

Boyd is a straight up gun and deserves to be second choice fullback for QLD.

I think Widdop is good enough to be the England fullback, but his real test won't come until the Four Nations.

yeah true on bowen, i was just trying to think of all the aussie fullbacks who are better than widdop cause someone on here was saying we might pinch him.

Widdop's lack of opportunity at club level is a big stumbling block. In such a competitive position, he can't afford to be playing reserves for much longer. I think the Bulldogs, post-Patten, would be a good fit for him.

yeah salary cap problems or not the storm arent letting slater go anywhere.

shame about haynsey for origin, he played all over slater

the match up in origin wouldve been something else

Did he what.

Metres Gained
Hayne 291m (from 25 runs)
Slater 48m (from 10 runs)

Try-Assists
Hayne 1
Slater 0

Linebreaks
Hayne 1
Slater 0

Tackle Breaks
Hayne 7
Slater 1

Offloads
Hayne 3
Slater 1

Errors
Hayne 0
Slater 4

It was awesome to watch the two come together, you knew it was more than just a Storm vs Eels thing for both of them. Hayne just lost the plot, but he still made Slater cry, so it was sort of worth it. I'll retract that comment if Kidley is given the NSW no.1 jersey again tomorrow night because of it though.

that last 14 minutes i was looking forward to continual brawls then archer sent off slater.

hayne is a special player. i fear what parra can do post origin and hayne in form

Have you even seen the kid play? Sure, he's no world beater, but he's only 21 and one of the best junior talents in the NRL.

He's good under the high ball and in 1-on-1 defence, he's got a great kick return and promising short kicking game, and his ability to find a gap and put himself through it is so far this season unmatched by any English fullback in SL.

I'll have money on him getting a couple of classy tries against the frogs and you'll be on here saying you always knew he was a decent player. He's far from average.

saw an interview with him on the SL website, his accent has an aussie twinge to it and he calls it 5/8th (which means centre according to the interviewer)