Tomkins all day long

In all honesty I would stick him at prop if I had to. He gets in my team one way or another.

I'd just be ready to say "i told you so" if he put in an attempted tackle like his one on French in 2019

Deffo Rads over Sam

I wouldnt for the same reasons I wouldnt have Rads over Sam at FB

Rads was one of my favourite players will always remember the tackle he did when Higham had only 10 mtrs to go to the line whilst playing for stains and like a missile Rads came from nowhere to not only flatten Mickey but dislodge the ball a absolute brilliant textbook hit.
I did mention this to him at one of those end of season things but he just looked at me ,he was worse for wear as was I lol.
I couldnt chose between Tompkins or Rads but you know you would have to find a spot for Tomkins somewhere on that team.

Same for me. Rads like Wellens at Saints were very good fullbacks and GREAT clubmen, but Sam had the x-factor. Some talk about his defence being poor but I remember him winning the game for us at Cas with three great tackles on Denny Solomona.

Correct
And I thought long and hard about extending my original post but didn't.
Because for every mistake Tomkins made, I could pick out one that Rads did and vice versa
And all we do then is criticise one or the other to deliegitimise the other, when the reality is at their time they were both the best this country had to offer.

Rads was very good, but just because Tomkins "Could" play somehwere else its a cop out to select him there. Rads probably played more games at centre for us than Tomkins did half back.

If you did pick Tomkins at FB you wouldn't have the response "But we have to get Rads in somehwere" because you don't.

But Tomkins has to be in

PS

On a 4hr flight recently me and another poster on here picked our best 17
As I went back a bit further (and deliberately to avoid the George Fairburn question) we went from 81/82

No1 - Sam Tomkins (Both massive fans of Rads) but Tomkins was Special

I'll reveal the full team later

The game has massively changed. Would Rads even move to fullback nowadays or would he come through in the centres and stay there? Gary Connolly is one of the best defensive fullbacks I have seen when he played there but I don't think you would dream of putting him there nowadays unless you really had to.

As I said on a previous post, I still think the job of my fullback is to be able to catch anything and tackle anything. If they can then be a major attacking threat even better but that's a bonus.

I think that's why it's hard to compare players from past eras. Forwards didn't get the breaks they get nowadays for example with the number of subs and probably took more high shots and late shots than they do now BUT someone like Kelvin Skerrett would probably be blowing out his backside with the pace of the game now.

I particularly enjoyed his defensive performance in April 1989.

Let's not make out Tomkins cost us numerous big games defensively - He was pretty good, but I admit Rads was better
However Ball in Hand - Tomkins was way ahead, and although hard to explain, Tomkins ability ball in hand contributed to our defensive capabilities and he organised the team well
But Simply put He frightened other teams ball in hand and was certainly part of the change in British RL from defensive solid most important type full backs to attacking,3rd pivot, running Full backs.

For sure. Sometimes it's hard not to fall into the trap of slating one player to make your case for another. I can remember a CC semi against Leeds and an international against Aus where he came unstuck and cost us points, but it certainly wasn't an every week kind of thing. For me it was more whether I preferred Radlinski or Williams/Lam in the 17. I think almost everyone agrees Tomkins would have to be in there, and I stand by his ability to play in the halves, he tore it up there in 09 and early 10.

So he's a better FB than Rads then?

Following on from last nights quiz regarding fullbacks me and Liam had a discussion this morning about Sam Tomkins. Had Chris Melling not tragically suffered that acl injury so early in his career would Sam have ever took that fullback spot? Melling was not only a great fullback in the making but was also a superb goalkicker and a very good captain and reader of the game, such a shame that we never got to see him progress. Mind you he also played centre for England academy, so who knows.