As a Wigan fan, I must admit I admire Laithwaite's defence, it is brilliant. However, Bateman is ahead of him at the moment. Bateman was one of the best players in the league early on in the season.

At 25 Whitehead is 4 years older than Bateman. Whitehead has had a stunning season and is rightly in the England squad. Bateman on the other hand is still learning and has only played about half the amount of career games that Whitehead has. So nothing is proven until Bateman has another 3 or 4 years experience behind him.

It's like comparing Chris Hill with James Graham, for example. Two great players but Graham is about 4 years older.

I don't understand what your saying. Is Bateman good enough or not?

At he moment he isn't as good as Whitehead. Given another two or three years he will IMO be better.

He has shown more than enough promise for Wigan this year. He will probably be O'Loughlin's successor at 13.

OK?

I'm not patronising you and to stop others posters from doing so, I think you have used a misleading example....?

I don't for one second assume you mean Hill isn't good enough for an England squad call up?

I on the other hand think Bateman is more than good enough regardless of his age.

As Alexander Murphy says..."If your good enough your old enough!"

Fair comment. I was using the comparison between Hill and Graham, because at the moment Graham is the best prop in the world and Hill is some way behind (though plenty good enough for England), though in time who knows Hill may become as good. At the moment Bateman is behind Whitehead, but it is not, as the poster suggested, proven that he is a better player.