They all play a significant part in the booming England set up, a lot of stuart lancaster coaching has a big rugby league background to it as well. will be interesting to see if Joel can establish him self as first team regular for England as they do have a lot of good up coming .

The RFU for a centrally funded contract, they would of loved to take rugby league poster boy again.

Not sure of the exact figures but isn't the average actual ball in play time for RU something like 30-35 minutes, compared to something like 55 minutes for RL. Not sure how standing round for an extra 20 minutes leads to extra intensity?

All the focus seems to have been on Joel in the last couple of days, yesterday on Radio 1 sport news there was an interview with both Tomkins' and the questioning to Joel was mostly if Sam would be jealous of him playing at Twickenham.

Union has a much bigger global standing than League but to have the audacity to say its more intense is a joke.He hasn't even played for the England Union team,and never played against the ozzies/kiwis in league.

Did he not play in a Four Nations?

It'll all die down after the weekend. As has been mentioned earlier, he's just doing a bit of brown-nosing to curry favour. Plus there may be some brotherly needle directed at Sam & Logan( ) - I'm sure they'll have picked up on what's been said.

Whatever we feel about the fact that they are plying their trade in the wrong code isn't it a cause for great pride that Wigan lads are dominating the England RU set up as well as the English RL scene. Just shows what a great nursery of rugby talent the little town of Wigan has become.

Thought he played a couple of exiles games only but just checked and he played the 4 nations over in oz against the ozzies and kiwis

Surprised the RL world cup is getting mentioned at all to be honest! That said to be fair I think the reports I have seen or heard over the last couple of days have not skimped on the RL side but I do wonder if Joel didn't have such a high profile brother playing in the RL world cup whether it would have got as many mentions.

Better of the 3 brothers, brought more benefit to the team when playing for us and had / still has more potential of the three in my opinion.

that sounds ridiculous considering Sam is the poster boy for RL and on many occasions came to our rescue, but I still stand by my comments.

signed....
Paul Wellens.

ha!!! seriously though, I do mean those comments.

Joel actually says that he would'nt say one code is tougher than the other, just different.

He goes on to say the in League your hart rate is consistently high, but in union it is much more variable, but you have to be alert to the changes in pace - so the mental concentration may be higher.