Robert Hicks is the referee for the game.

Benett is on record that Williams and Widdop are not 'half backs' (i.e. Number 7) so he'll never play them both in combination. Gale has ben disappointing but he's clearly not been allowed to steer the team around the field as he does for Cas, Hodgson seems to have that role. Give Gale the main playmaking responsibility and I think he'll come good.

Looks like Bennett has pretty much confirmed Widdop will be back in and he mentions giving lads a game last week so they didn't feel like the month was wasted so I expect we'll be back to the side that played the Kiwis (expect Percival for Sarginson and maybe Farrell for Bateman or a prop).

Graham looks like he'll be ok also according to the interview I read.

I read that has well and it says if we beat the ozzies by more then 12 points they might be in trouble for the final I know its a big IF but it has got to happen some time why not Sunday

whenever i've seen Graham in the nrl he sometimes operates as an extra half to move the ball about a bit, he has a great pair of hands. hope he can do this a bit more for england if needed

Yes, but Canterbury have done that ploy to death now, and opposing teams are wise to it.

Hope he doesn't, its painfully slow and has resulted in the Bulldogs attack been awful this year.

It worked really well for half a season, but as soon as clubs started to mark him like a halfback it went to dust, as he isn't quick enough to change the play once its in motion. The other downside for the Dogs is that it really hid how awful their halfbacks were (Hodkinson, Reynolds and now Mbye).

Having said that, if its not overused, it could work very well (e.g. one play every second or third set).

As an aside, I don't think Bennett will see this competition as a failure even if we lose badly to Australia. His aim is to prepare us for the World Cup next year. This competition has introduced him to most of the available players, and given him the chance to see who thrives and who simply isn't good enough at this level. I expect we'll see a number of changes for next year, particularly if we don't do well against Australia (including a revival of Aussiegate).

On the interview side, Bennett is apparently a very good public speaker - he used to make a mint out of giving motivational talks to businesses when he was at the Broncos previously, mostly based off his books. Given that he doesn't want to do them for England, it might be better to just skip him entirely and let Betts do all the talking.

You were going so well up to this point.

Marge Simpson's sister?

No thanks.

Paul Anderson? Paul Sculthorpe? There's enough in the entourage to choose from.

A thick sounding Lancastrian or a thick sounding Yorkshireman talking in cliches. Give me Bennett any day. Ah, yeh, nah, yeh, mate.

England: J Lomax (St Helens); J McGillvary (Huddersfield), K Watkins (Leeds), M Percival (St Helens), R Hall (Leeds); G Widdop (St George Illawarra), K Brown (Widnes); C Hill (Warrington), J Hodgson (Canberra), J Graham (Canterbury Bulldogs), E Whitehead (Canberra), J Bateman (Wigan), S Burgess (South Sydney, capt). Subs: D Clark (Warrington), T Burgess (South Sydney), G Burgess (South Sydney), M Cooper (St George Illawarra).

Kevin Brown at scrum half. Thoughts??

So Williams having had the best performance from an English half so far (albeit not brilliant) does him no favours at all?

Clearly WB is going to say, it's all about the World Cup.

And only one Wiganer in the side!