I, like may, we're impressed with Sarginson's showing in the internationals, but I'm afraid the total schooling that Chris Bridge gave him t'other week will taint my rating of him for a good while.

At the end of the day, a young player at Saints/Wigan/Wire/Leeds will always be in front of any other player in his position regardless of age/form/ simply because of the club they play for....this ideal that a player MUST be better cos he plays in a better team is laughable. Wardle is class but won't get ahead of the likes of Sarginson and even Percival ( who to me isn't even anywhere near his top potential yet but plays for Saints) despite having been solid and performing well for 3 or 4 years.

Jerry McGillvary has been and still is one of the most powerful, explosive, exciting, fastest wingers in Super League for years but will never ever be mentioned as an international while the top clubs have English guys playing (again - no matter how well they are actually doing !!).

I agree, cant believe we picked players from that massive club Hull Fc on the wing!

The players selected from Wigan and Leeds on the wings have been selected because they have been the best wingers! McGilvary will never be in the same class as Charnley (130 tries in 120 games before this season) or Hall. Burgess got selected in the squad last season after such a brilliant rookie season which he got to a Grand Final and played in a WCC in Aus (in which the Roosters saw fit to sign him up)

"Saints players always get picked."

I'm sure we had none selected last year.

McGillvray will get in when he signs for Saints

You've kind of summed up my point there, Is Charnley a better player than Jerry simply off the back of his scoring record ? and i mean all round player not just at putting a ball over the line when the hard work has been done for him ?

As for Burgess, yes he had a good season but after just 1 is he a better player than McGillvary for example ?
That's part of my issue - if you have a great 1st or 2nd season at a top club you tend to get picked for England regardless of how others who have been performing as good or better for years are doing.
If a youngster at a less fancied club has a storming star to his career he can't be picked for England simply because 'he's inexperienced' or 'still learning' but yet that rule doesn't seem to apply to the likes of Burgess/Makinson/Percival etc due to their club stature - By the way, all the ones i have mentioned are very good players and i am using them as an example to my point.

Josh Charnley
T TA TK MT MI TB AT C M AG CB DR DG E FT G MG OF P
2012 31 3 154 25 21 57 3 357 2826 7.92 30 28 0 25 0 56 39 4 26 games
2013 34 7 181 34 22 75 4 383 3471 9.06 35 28 0 37 0 11 4 9 7 25 games
2014 19 2 107 19 17 37 3 208 1814 8.72 18 11 0 19 0 0 0 5 7 16 games

Jermain McGilvery
2012 9 1 79 3 25 49 7 259 2345 9.05 16 8 0 15 0 0 0 3 4 20 games
2013 19 2 120 6 27 54 7 328 2941 8.97 20 14 0 21 0 0 0 8 5 24 games
2014 20 1 137 7 27 68 4 291 2624 9.02 26 10 0 24 0 0 0 10 5 24 games

Joe Burgess
2014 17 6 79 8 15 55 5 248 2639 10.64 27 38 0 38 0 0 0 11 3

so in the last 3 seasons McGilvery has missed 79 of 336 tackles (22.6%) Charnley missed 60 of 442 (13.6%)

you speak of hard yards Mcgilvery has 32 dummy half runs, Charnley 67. JC has 948 (14.15 per game) carries, JM 878(12.91 per game)

Clean breaks 83 JC, 62 JM. Tackle Busts 169 JC (2.52 per game) 171 JM (2.51 per game)

JC has 8111 meters (8.56/carry), JM 7910 meters (9.01m/carry)

the only real area where JM has a large lead is in errors. Tackling, try's, assists, carries, clean breaks all massively in JC favour, tackle busts very even, meters per carry has JM 45cm further.

so the above assertion that a player just putting the ball down over the line can certainly not be applied to JC, who is a much more active player than JM. Charnley is certainly a player that does a lot of the unnoticed work (Wigan were the first team to have their outside backs running the ball up on tackle 1, 2 and 3 and JC was always first to stick his hand up.

As for you saying is Burgess a better player than McGilvery after 1 season, the answer is simple. Yes. he is one hell of a player. In his rookie year he was putting up some exceptional numbers, 10.64 average gain! 27 clean breaks, nearly 4x more dummy half runs than Mcgilvery. 18.9% miss percentage is a little high, but still lower than the 22.6% of JM.

I mean this is really cut and dry, you seem to have the wrong impression about Charnley, it is easy to think he is simply a pretty boy that puts the ball down, but that is completely wrong.

the point is, just because a certain player plays in a better team doesn't mean that a player from that team is neccesarily a better player than a player from another club just because plays in the same position .

is Jon Wilkin a better half back than Danny Brough or Terry Campese for example? clearly not but yet it seems that because he plays for a team who are better than Brough or Campese's teams then that means he's the better player?

i see the point Daz is making, and i see Jimlav's point, but Charnley and Mcgilvary are different players with different attributes, but Charnley will always be regarded as the better player because of his club.

That, and the fact that he probably is a better a player. I like McGilvery but he's not as good as any of the wingers picked in front of him last year. He's quite a bit older than Charnley as well.

I'm not suggesting Jerry should be picked for England above anyone else i was just using him and other players as an example of my point, like i have said i think all those players i've named are very good players in their own right...

Don't disagree with that and he admitted himself he had a shocker. He was having a relatively poor season until the last 2 games where he has played out of his skin and back to his best, albeit against poor opposition. Needs to continue that form to the end of the season and he'll retain his #4 jersey. His defence is usually his strongest attribute. Remember an incredible try saver on Greg Inglis last year.

Whatever that peasant SLS said about running a natural centres line was just a load of garbage though.

Still playing for Wentworthville Magpies a down to play on the wing this coming weekend .

Sorry, only just seen your post.

I realise it's a futile exercise discussing the finer points of the sport with a Wiganer but what the hell.

Sarginson does not run a centre's line. He has two modes: crabbing across field or taking the space from his winger. Wiganers point to his stats but the truth is they're hugely exaggerated by Wigan's dominance of using their outside three for metres on early tackles. You can get away with that in SL. A glance at his Grand Final stats for instance imply he had a great game but the context of it is that he barely threatened despite that flank being up against LMS at centre and Percival shifted to the wing. LMS was able to control him in threatening positions with ease precisely because he is incapable of holding his centre. It's no good making 100 easy metres on exit sets when you can't hold a line against a second rower at 3.

Of course, he's relatively new to the role and fared well in the internationals so there's clearly talent there. However, he is simply nowhere near the natural centre that Percival is. Percival naturally holds his man in the same way Paul Newlove once did; it's hard to define but just enough to take the outside shoulder but not enough to take the winger's space. It results constantly in the winger coming in and a centre with good hands putting his winger in for a walk in. Percival's handling, decision making and timing are superb for a young lad. I realise stats aren't allowed but have a glance at the scoring ratio for the winger on Percival's side in the games he's been their centre. It's brilliant and it isn't because of a dominance on using outside threes on early tackles or from deep. Saints use their backs in the conventional manner: generally 3rd/4th tackle set plays. Still, Percival's stats are exemplary and beyond all on a game by game ratio. As I said earlier, he's 20 years old and in his first real full season. As a Saints fan but more importantly, as a British RL fan, it's marvellous to watch a proper centre.

Britain produces centres like this like rocking horses produce . Obviously not credited across the league as of yet but they'll see it soon enough.

Most NRL clubs do it too: Vatuvei, Uate, Croker, Naqama, etc etc. It's hardly a discredited SL tactic.

Love how SLS is trying to make the most basic on centre play sound so advanced people wouldn't understand. If you want an example of it watch Ryan halls try for England v Aus in the 4 nations just gone.

Next SLS will be trying to claim the rest of us would not be able to understand the concept of the scooting hooker!