Quote: Aboveusonlypie "Fair point. I suppose if by some miracle we do get to the final and picked up a few injuries who would you want to face O'Neill, Dugan, Chambers, Jennings etc etc? I'd probably be happier playing Bateman at centre rather than Gildart.
I think you might be in the minority rating Faz over Bateman. I love Faz, never lets us down. But I'd have Bateman every time. I think it was Danny Lockwood who described Bateman as the sort of bloke who marches into a pub and says "right, I'll fight the lot of you!" I'd want Bateman in my team every time, especially against the Aussies.'"
Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Bateman, but size seems to really make a difference in internationals, and I remember the kiwis having no trouble at all dealing with him in the Huddersfield test. A smart player can also wind him up enough to get him penalised/binned/sent off (I'm thinking the Salford away game a couple of years ago, when he came off the bench, got binned straight away, came out of the bin and got red carded straight away, resulting in a tight loss, and Warrington at home this year when we would have had a scrum with a minute to go at 10 - 14 until he slapped one of their players to give them the penalty to seal the game). Farrell is a bit bigger and runs very good lines which could in theory cause them problems, plus he's the far more experienced player of the two, although granted he doesn't have the same aggression as Bateman. Probably academic anyway as I expect the back row to be Whitehead, S.Burgess, O'Loughlin and Ferres on the bench, unless they use McQueen/Heighington