I'm a big critic of the state of SL, but even though the quality has dipped you cannot get away from the fact that the competition has a superstar in Tomkins. He is the best player of the SL era. I suspect Radders would be a bit embarrassed by being ranked ahead of Sam. Radders was a special player, one of the best British players of his era and a fantastic servant of the club, but players as gifted as Tomkins come along once every 20 or 30 years. Sam must be in the side.

Other must haves (from players I have seen) are:

Miles and Offiah - The best centre/wing combination I've ever seen. Miles strength and offloading skills, his ability to draw tacklers and create space meant he was perfect for Offiah. if they were playing in SL today they'd be scoring tries for fun still, despite modern defences.

Robinson - freakishly gifted. Always seemed to pull out a great performance in the big matches, a true match winner.

Farrell - only a rung down from Hanley and Tomkins on the talent ladder. One of the greats of modern RL.

Hanley - the greatest British player of his generation.

Was over in ausstralia in 2008 during the world cup and was chattin to some cronulla fans in a bar in sydney just after barrett had signed for them, even though they was made up that he had signed for them , they said you can,t mention barrett in the same sentence as brett kenny.

Fairbairn
Boston
Ashton
Miles
Offiah
Edwards
Gregory
Gray
Newton
McTigue
Farrell
Ashurst
Hanley

Immense team.

As a professional Edwards is the best there is but as an out an out player I'd have Gregory, Kenny, Lam and Barratt ahead of him in the halves. If Gregory had have had Edwards level of professionalism he would have been the best player in the world, in my opinion of course.

Good observation that, most if not all players like to be out socialising, but with Gregory and to an extent Gary Connolley the drink took over. The pattern I'm seeing with all the selections are that all these players were big game players, yes they all had bad games here and there, but if they were to play at Wembley tomorrow they would all play at their top levels and wouldnt accept anything but a victory.

While most of us can see that Sam is an exceptional player, and will probably become a great player (maybe not with us unfortunately) it is only now he is coming into his prime.

How many trophies has he won, and how many caps has he accrued ?

Some are equating Sam with Radders. I have to say as good as ST is, Radders was the better full back. Rads could hammer forwards into touch. He started off a spindly player IIRC on the wing, and built himself up physically to be a very powerful player with great speed.

Plus radders won the Lance Todd trophy when coming back from injury and playing with an injured foot. It's episodes like that, that capture the fans memories and makes players into heroes.

Sam hasn't yet done that.

He has the potential to be named with the Bostons,Edwards, Gregorys and so on. Will he realise that potential ?

The biggest stage in Rugby League awaits him tomorrow.

Tomkins has won a Grand Final and a Challenge Cup and played vital roles in both. I'd say Radlinski is the better all round full back but Tomkins the better player. Tomkins can win a game on his own for us the way no other SL era Wigan player could, he's already a great player, and I expect him to become world-class in the NRL. I'd love to see what he could have done behind the pack we had in '01 either at full back or playing stand off next to Adrian Lam

I disagree I think Radders should be full back 100%

I disagree I think Radders should be full back 100%

Trophies do not a great player make.

I refer you to Ricky Bibey.

Though Sam has got the MoS....

As for caps, he's already got a few of those.

Sam may go on to do many great things in Oz, but he is already a great player. He is so much better than the other players in SL that if I'm wrong and Sam isn't a great player then things in SL are even more worrying than I feared.

Are you mad? A team without Boston?! You must be too far up Ged's ladders to see the mistake in the team you've made

As I have already mentioned previously, no doubt Boston was a great player but I am too young to have seen him play!!

They do when referring to players like Edwards and Gregory.

If there was a tackle needing to be made by a full back then Radlinski would be the only full back that I would want making it.

However, in attack Sam is without a shadow of a doubt the most gifted and entertaining full back that I have ever seen in a Wigan shirt.

For that reason he has to be in.