25 John Bateman
1 Matty Bowen
32 Joe Burgess
2 Josh Charnley
24 Tony Clubb
17 Dom Crosby
16 Gil Dudson
12 Liam Farrell
10 Ben Flower
5 Anthony Gelling
3 Darrell Goulding
6 Blake Green
14 Jack Hughes
9 Michael McIlorum
13 Sean O'Loughlin
22 Eddy Pettybourne
23 Dan Sarginson
7 Matty Smith
8 Scott Taylor

Looks like McIlorum's doing the full 80 then, two from Clubb/Hughes/Gelling to miss out.

Matt Bowen
Josh Charnley
Darrell Goulding
Dan Sarginson
Joe Burgess
Blake Green
Matty Smith
Ben Flower
Michael McIlorum
Scott Taylor
Liam Farrell
John Bateman
Sean O'Loughlin

Gil Dudson
Dom Crosby
Tony Clubb
Eddie Pettybourne

Gelling & Hughes to miss out.
McIlorum will need to do full 80
If we can defend strongly i feel we have points in us and could spring a surprise.

Hampshire deserves to be somewhere in the team IMO. Are we really going to get that much use out of a 5th back rower on the bench? Surely a ball player would be more useful to give McIlorum a break, even if only for 20 minutes

I thought we'd go that way but it is a risk with McIlorum not looking 100%. If he were it's fine because we saw in the play offs that 80 minutes isn't an issue for him.

I still wouldn't be surprised to see it change slightly. Is Lockers training fully yet? I saw the pictures from the session with South Sydney and he wasn't on our team snap at the end from what I could see.

would rather have hughes or gelling instead of clubb......slight cover for the backline and more mobile than clubb

I think I'd leave Crosby and gelling out, only to get Hughes in incase we get an injury in the back.

Club and Gelling to miss out for me. Despite his size, club is nowhere near the standard yet. Hughes has done well so far and offers the option to drop into the backs.

I too would have Hampshire in the 17, he would give that zip which seems to be missing in the half's to trouble the Roosters.

The following was taken from the Roosters forum in a thread discussing the respective squads.

"English winger Charnley missed Wigan's upset opening round Super League loss to Huddersfield due to an off-season hernia operation but is expected to be fit for the February 22 match at Allianz Stadium.

Charnley, Super League's leading tryscorer last season, is set to trial for a NRL spot in the showdown between the northern hemisphere champions and the NRL premiers with the 22-year-old's manager publicly declaring his client's desire to win a contract in Australia".

It looks like if any Wigan player had a blinder in the match the vultures will be circling round.

Not only was O'Loughlin absent from the end-of-training team photo today , but also from the Official WCC press-conference held at the Allianz Arena ! McIllorum , Smith & Bowen were the Wigan representatives whilst Roosters had their captain present ! Micky held the WCC trophy jointly with Minichello for the official photos....

I was half expecting Thornley or Gelling to replace Sarginson, with thoughts towards defence. But from that squad it isn't going to happen. Massively disappointed that Hampshire isn't in there.

Hampshire is a gem and it'd be exciting to watch him but ultimately there's nowhere to put him. He's very inexperienced and we're carrying enough young lads in the team. We have Matty Bowen at fullback who is experienced and knows what to expect. We have Green at 6 who was MOM in the grand final and has a point to prove down under. The only other option was to bench Hampshire and use him at 7 with Smith at 9 when Micky Mac goes off but that's disruptive to our pattern of play as Smith will be controlling us from 7.

There just isn't room to play him IMO but his time will come.

I agree, I've got no doubt that Hampshire's time will come, but people need to be patient. People caliing for him to be put in at FB over Bowen, for example. He's 19, he'll probably play 10-15 games this season and he'll benefit massively from that. Throwing him in at the deep end to play a WCC in Oz when he's got less than 10 first team appearances under his belt isn't the right approach.

They've shown on the other board that there are two refs for the WCC as it's being played under NRL rules.
When was that agreed? I never remember it being played under SL rules here but International rules.
Has this been agreed by Wigan or imposed upon them?

It a farce whoever has agreed it.

Why isn't the world game being played under one set of rules? Ridiculous!!