I'd be tempted to leave Bateman at centre in the early part of the season at least. The backrow of Farrell, Joel Tomkins and O'Loughlin is probably the strongest in the league and IMO it would be a waste to have any one of those four on the bench. Once Sam Tomkins returns it'll then leave Wane with some interesting selection dilemmas.

The Watkins hype is a product of a pretty weak superleague. A guy billed as one of the best in the world previously would be expected to rack up 20+ trys a season and also contribute a huge amount of assists and do this on a regular basis but Watkins doesn't do this.

He's a very good player but when you look at top superleague centres over the years like Jamie Lyon, Paul Newlove, Gary Connelly etc he isn't in that class.

Add a certain george carmont to that list

Defensively sound, I think any criticism of any of our centres n wingers is harsh as majority of our play was up the middle and very forwards based.

Watkins hall burgess Bateman were there to stop the opposition and give the props a break running ball up. Worked well this series but we will need a plan b fir the four nations and world cup

We'll certainly need a plan B for the World Cup because it'll be dry tracks all the way. The Kiwis will bring their offload game out and the Aussies are the Aussies.

We won't win that tournament with no trys being scored by the backs.

Watkins needs early ball. Its almost as simple as that - early ball with space to run at the defence. A flat attacking structure doesn't suit him at all IMO (unlike say Senior who liked getting the ball in traffic), and neither does one where the passing is slow.

He does seem to lack a bit of confidence at times. I remember watching him live a few years ago and thinking that he really doesn't realise how powerful he is. He's physically almost perfect for centre - big and strong but quick - and he does have good hands. But he does need to do more than he's shown in this series.

Reed is a super player. The only problem with him is lack of pace, which can be exposed at times one-on-one in defence. Having said that, its his very lack of pace which has probably made him the player he is.

It was no coincidence that Watkins had the most opportunities to test the Kiwis in that last game with Matty Smity in the team. He unlike Williams and Widdop provided simple, early ball but he failed to use it.

He's a good player but not a great one yet. It's impossible to get players out of Leeds but he'd do well to go and rest himself in the NRL.

Get stuck into Watkins and he is poor.

I thought Bateman was excellent in the 3rd match. As someone pointed out it was a defensive type of game and as I recall, any player who went near him promptly got put on their . He had a great game and some excellent tackles

He made some good ground in that last test also. He ran an excellent line on an inside ball which got the Kiwis back peddling just before one of the 2nd half trys (can't remember which one).

As you say he was defensively excellent. Him and Whare pretty much marked each other out of games.