So what if he was a brickie last year? It is what is happening now that matters. Iam sure the England management team have been monitoring Widdop and Reed on a weekly basis this year. It is not a case of him playing in the NRL so he is guaranteed a England shirt. The England coaches will have watched enough video tape and looked at plenty of stats to make a decision on Reed in comparison to the others.

widdop was earmarked as a star while playing under 20's..it made perfect sense to select him,more to stop NSW getting their paws on him..

as for reed being a brickie last year......my point being that if australia where as strong in the 3/4's and as good as developing young talent as some of you have us believe jack reed would have been picked up years ago..apparently canbarra knocked him back while playing for their feeder team in the QLD cup......he's a average player thats taken his chance,fair play to the lad, but he only got that chance due to lack of talent coming through...

Wasn't Matt King a bin man for a while, i know he worked outside rugby anyway, he's rubbish too.

Jeremy Guscott was a brickie and now he is the poshest person on the planet so things can change!

You may think you are making sense, but your not.

That he was "laying brick" last year, as you so poetically put it, is totally irrelevant despite your attempt to qualify it. Players just like "ordinary" people develop at different rates or have different drives and committment levels. I would suggest there are sufficient variables in there to make it perfect reasonable for him to have been a lollipop man 6 months ago if he wanted and it still not have a bearing on his ability or form.

The England/British 3/4's have never been so poor in my opinion. We simply do not produce them, we produce very few quality backs full stop. We get the odd maverick that turns up, but thats through chance rather than design.

While I agree with the first part of your post, I cannot agree with the second

The England three quarters for the game against New Zealand in the group stages of the 2008 RL World Cup included Mark Calderwood, Paul Sykes and Lee Smith... none of these would get anywhere near the England team today

The full back line and half backs that day were

Wellens
Calderwood
Sykes
Senior
Smith
Gleeson (at stand off!)
Burrow

Compare that to some of the possible candidates for this year (without Reed listed) and I think the 2011 vintage are miles ahead

S Tomkins
Briscoe
Atkins/Yeaman
Bridge/Shenton/Watkins
McGillvary/Hall
Widdop
Brough/Lomax

Haven't seen anyone mention Ben Jones-Bishop. I really rate the lad and would definitely have him in my England squad.

The fact he can cover wing and full-back to a good standard would mean I'd definitely have him in the squad.

In terms of the matchday 17, he's not going to displace Golden Boy at full-back and would probably be behind Charnley, Briscoe and Hall on the wings.

Why is Fozzie getting his knickers in a twist, the lad is as English as chips and gravy, a Yorkshire lad that plays RL. Really don't see the problem, i'm sure if Graham or Moz in his prime had lived in Sydney for just the first week of their lives they'd try to get them playing for Oz.

Give over this kids a star in the making and much better than Josh Charnley and IMO better tha Ryan Hall. He's got great confidence and he can beat his man, just how he rounded Richards like he wasn't there. You don't see the modern day winger do that these days.

I also like Kallum Wakins but I think he need another good season under his belt. Hardaker looks like he's got potential too

Very, very good point. There are others too. From the days of Atcheson, Calderwood, Sinfield, Farrell and Scully at 6, Richard Horne on the wing, Gareth Raynor and Paul Sykes all playing for England, this teams way better. The age of the team is so young too.

Catalancs-I'll be honest, the only reason I havn't mentioned BJB or Watkins is I havn't seen enough of Leeds this year for some reason, only seen them play a few times.

Reed should be the first picked. Spud is just on his usual inferiority complex NRL bashing.

The fact that we are arguing about whether BJB is a better winger than Hall, Charnley, McGillvary or Briscoe is a good thing.... because every single one of them is a hell of a lot better than having Mark Calderwood or Richard Horne on the wing

Same with the centres... should be go with the likes of Bridge, Shenton, Yeaman, Watkins, Atkins etc or bring Reed in. Again, I don’t know the answer to that but they are all better than some of the recent English centres (Sykes, Smith etc)

This in itself tells me the situation is better... the last 5 or 6 years it has been Senior and Gleeson when fit ‘cause we didn’t have anybody else

Don't you think that this would be a good opportunity to introduce the Lancashire V Yorkshire? People will slate me for mentioning it because it didn't work years ago. For me some players want to prove themselves against players they are competing with to get a place in the England team. It would also bring some passion back into the game. No one ever thought the SOO would work but they stuck by it and look at it now, it's massive. It may never reach the dizzy heights of the SOO but it give players a chance to play rep rugby at a level above SL.

I like the idea of the exiles but now the NRL have more money to spend on players, so the quality of overseas player coming over will drop and then we could end up with a one sided game. It's only what I would predict would happen in the next few years.