I'd rather see Atkins at Centre than Goulding though given the choice.

Anybody else think we might come home winless? If we cant beat Cumbria and the Moaris then PNG arent going to be push overs. England has always been miles behind on the international scene i think this prick is going to put us back even further.

Someone like Danny Brough would walk into this team. Shame he's 'Scottish'. We could really do with his kicking game.

This team selection reminds me of the Maurice Bamford era. Bewildering selections, with the most obvious players and combinations not used. Weird.

After last weeks performance things needed to change.

O'Loughlin is light years ahead of Brown at 6. As Bilko said it shows our game up for what it is but sadly with the squad he has it is the best option and will be able to link up with Sam and Robinson well.

Cudjoe at centre?? completely mental! I would have just played Brown at centre, his best position. A wing/centre partnership of Goulding and Cudjoe is not good enough at international level, nevermind against the Aussies.

Karl Pryce.

Aint Widdop getting the Number 6 jersey for Storm next year? Surely would of been logical for him and Sam to swap. Good luck lads you will need it

I appreciate that Kevin Brown may not be everyone's idea of a great stand-off (he certainly isn't mine!) but I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with FTV, whose post I thought was excellent.

As well though as the selection of Sean at standoff being wrong in pure rugby terms its also very unfair to Lockers.

Playing him out of position is almost inevitably going to result in more Lockers bashing on this board, this site and elsewhere.

Andy Farrell was played out of position far too often and is therefore unfairly criticised for not having done well enough at international level to justify his status as the greatest British player of his generation.

Following the inevitable hammering at the hands of the Aussies on Sunday Sean will be scapegoated as not being international class. As a result of this selection Sean will like Faz before him attract a lot of flak from the idiots in the RL media and the even bigger idiots that pillory Lockers on this board (I actually saw one post from an utter cretin that accused Lockers of "not turning up" in the first test against NZ, even though the lad made 40 tackles - you just couldn't make it up! ).

I expect Lockers, like Faz before him, will take one for the team and give his usual 110%, though that makes this even more wrong.

At times I despair for RL, though perhaps the fact that I'm in agreement for once with FTV shows that progress is possible!

They last played in the halves together in 2004 I think; certainly in the Super League.
For what it's worth our Super League record with O'Loughlin and Robinson in the halves (not including playoffs) is played 9, won 6, drawn 2, lost 1.
I know it means absolutely nothing but I got bored. Our biggest win with that pairing was 68-12 against the powerhouse that is Halifax. Our only loss was against London Broncos. Luckily they won't be coming up against a side of that quality at the weekend.

im fairly sure Danny Brough made himself available for England but McNamara decided to go for the "other" two "halfbacks" at Huddersfield?

2003 - won 6 drew 1 lost 1
2004 - won 1 drew 1 lost 1

so they haven't played much together, and it was a long time ago, but they seemed to go ok as a pairing.

Strange team selection - overall an improvement on last week's side though.

Sam at fullback is a good move, but that then forces Lockers into the halves simply because there are few other options. Brown is clearly not up to it. Crabtree for Griffin is a good move, as is the non-selection of Hall. I don't see why Widdop has been dropped, though. Apart from one "Mathers Moment" he had a pretty decent game.

The problem really is the squad that went out there, with poor centres and no real scrum half. On that basis, the "scapegoat" should be McNamara.

Out in the real world he will be, but in the fantasy world of Rugby League message boards it will be all the Wigan captain's fault.

Dont you just mean Wigans!

Can they still blame Maurice?