Exactly. People are bandying a few names around now but during the course of the season none of them have played as well as Smith. As you and a couple of other honest posters have said he earned his place on form.

Smith played badly at the weekend, that is undeniable. However, I dare anyone hand on heart to say they would've selected any of the names mention on here ahead of him prior to Saturday's game.

We simply do not have the talent pool. I would be delighted if we had produced a Greg Inglis at Bradford, St Helens, Hull or anywhere else so Smith could be left out of the side and shunted off to cash his cheque from union. But we don't and until clubs stop relying on very average antipodeans to fill the skill positions nothing will change.

You named two potential centres there. One retired and Gilmour finished the season in the back row.

I am not getting into an argument about who did and deserve selection. I am simply pointing out there were [ino[/i decent centres to select. I am trying to focus the attention on why that is. Very few posters have answered the original question on the thread. Who played centre for your team?

Direct your annoyance at Lee Smith and Tony Smith by all means. By remove those two from the England set up and you're left with Steve Mcnamara coaching us and Chris Bridge, Paul Sykes, Michael Shenton and Kyle Eatsmond all vying to out play Inglis and Hodges.

How did he make 27 tackles then?

FFS getting praise for Shenton is like getting blood from a stone. The guy made 27 tackles - was he running to the opposite side of the pitch to make them or something?

You obviously missed the number of sets in the first half where the Aussies just drove at our left hand defence (Tompkins-Shenton-Hall), got absolutely nowhere, so passed it left and walked through the batwing doors provided by Smith and Maguire

His opposite number made 9 tackles.

For the point about English centres, Cas have Kirk Dixon, who although has played his majority of games at winger, would be a more than adequate centre. Not sure about international class but can score tries for fun down the right and think he's probably more suited pace wise to centre than wing.

Hull Have three on their books that could make top class centres.

Briscoe
Hall
Lynne.

The first two you all will have seen, Reece Lynne has just left school and is already in the first team squad, a big lad who is very fast.

Possible the best centre in England for his age.

It's not the number of tackles - it's WHO he's tackling. The most dangerous players for Australia seem to prefer the left hand side. That's not to say they aren't prepared to try the right - it's just that they are less keen on it.



Do me a favour and drop the emotion. I said the lad did nothing wrong. Which is praise enough given the shambles England delivered for much of the game.

It seems you want us all to prostrate ourselves before his shimmering visage. What for? It's not like the Aussies are qualing in terror.

Be interesting to see what kirk yeaman can do with some service next year. We'll get to see if 2006 was a flash in the pan or if its something he can sustain. Defensively hes outstanding.

Clubb was switched between wing, centre and second-row during the season, although given that Matt Gafa kept being selected at centre that's as much a sign of coaching ineptitude as anything Clubb did. Personally I think he has more potential as a strong-running second-row than as a centre, but then we don't play that way, we try to bore teams to death instead.

Purdham also played some time at centre, although he's primarily a LF he's comfortable playing at centre, unfortunately he also injury problems that make him unavailable for selection.

My club has developed 3 back-row centres, non of them can ply for England, natch.

Fair enough he was taking hodges on rather than inglis, but on the other hand shentons side of the defence did far more tackling than smiths, shentons 27 tackles in defence were nearly double his net rival in tackles, tompkins who made 15 and was the on the same side as shenton. The aussies tries to break through the left of hall-shenton-tompkins-ellis several times (more times in the end than they tried to go down the right) and couldnt find a way through. Shenton also deserves credit for causing two aussie knock ons with his agressive tackling and forcing a player into touch.

If we actually get the ball out to him in a decent position him and hall are going to score tries being the top try scoring winger and centre in sl.

I certainly hope so. We have Kallum Watkins at Leeds who I also have high hopes for. Maybe there's a little bit of hope for a year or two down the line but none of those players were ready for [ithis[/i series were they?