If Woods was playing in the present era, he would be a shoe-in for this England side..... Unfortunately though, this era is obsessed with set-plays and stifling natural talent, so Woods would be restricted to playing in a channel ( ) and would probably look ordinary.

Woods or Sinfield at stand off??....

You cannot play Westwood and McIlorum in the same team.
The problem England have in the halves is that you need to malgamate all the ability of Sinfield, Chase and Widdop into two players to get two decent halves out of them.

Brough would have been the better choice and would have complemented anyone of the other three.

Fair play to Crabtree for staying positive in the studio rather than saying how the fook did Tom Burgess get in before me.

Despite everything that is not a great Austrailian team and could have been beaten.

The difference was lack of concentration, some silly mistakes and penalties.

If that game had been played with Graham, O,Loughlin and Farrell instead of Tom Burgess, Westwood and Mossop England could have won.

John Woods NOT a good stand off........ you're clueless or myopic,
or both.

For me pluses were G Burgess, Roby, Ferris, Watkins Cudjoe, Hill and Hall.
Sam Burgess was ok, Tomkins was ok but I expected better, Sinfield was ok

Minuses were Westwood (penalty machine), Mossop and T Burgess (how did these two get in ahead of crabtree). Charnley was poor.

O'Loughlin and Graham need t be back in for Mossop and Westwood. Farrell for T Burgess. I would leave Ferres in the side. He played hard and clean which meant no pens.

....... Priceless.

A sensible post. As I said way back it all went wrong when first Westwood and then Burgess dropped the ball after about 20 minutes and the forwards lost their control. Up to that point the halves were controlling the game. We lost it as we always do because the forwards cannot maintain domination and discipline. They always play all out and then tire. The Aussie pack often takes a battering against us early on but plugs away and comes out on top. That's where we lost it today. I would say despite Inglis' size that Tomkins did not, IMO, position himself nor compete hard enough for the highish kick. Could you imagine someone like Mick Burke having conceded that try? He may not have took the ball but Inglis would not have progressed! To me Tomkins always struggles to get his feet in place for the high ball and looks a bit windy.

I think the issue is that Woods was a part timer who if I remember even missed a down under tour because he couldn't get time off work.

He was certainly a quality player at club level.

But let's be under no illusions when Myler, Woods et al were playing GB got smashed in most games by the Aussies.

The way I remember it, 1988 was the peak of Gregory's international career, after that he faded away very quickly due to injury etc. Edwards missed the 88 tour due to injury.
From then till about 1992 or perhaps a bit later, the half backs were two out of Edwards, David Hulme and Schofield, with the likes of Goulding, Fox and Paul Hulme covering for injuries or as midweek halfbacks on tour.
For the WC final in 1992, Fox was picked at scrum half as he was right on top of his game and I don't remember him doing much wrong.
Woods had the misfortune to be around in GB's worst international period, i.e. the early to mid 80's, same as Myler who suffered a lot from injuries later on.

I think Ferres did enough to maintain his place ahead of other perceived (by people on here) better players.

absolutely

That's about right - plus Darryl Powell at SO. Yes, I agree Fox was a good choice for that match, he was the form player.

As to the Gregory / Edwards obsession - give me David Hulme anyday - better tackler, aggressive, could score 100 yard tries.

For a couple of years in the early 80 s, Woody was probably the best RL player on the planet, as for his and GB s succes at that time against the Aussies, well they were from a different planet

Have some dignity! Look at the names in the Australian team of 1982 - Meninga, Miles, Groethe, Boustead, Anderson, Wally Lewis, Brett Keeny, etc, etc. Woods was better than the all was he. You are just deluded.