Personally not sure he is a scape goat just not sure what he brings to the team in regards the hooking position. He may very well bring good defence and work ethic, but so did Malcolm Alker and I did not see many people wanting him at Wigan.

The fact is that both last year and this year, more often than not we are a much poorer unit when he is on the field, we lack direction around the field. A modern day hooker needs to guide us round the pitch, something Piggy did wonderfully and something Tommy seems to be getting the grasp of by the match.

A hooker needs to understand where we can launch moves from and work with our forwards to put us in that position, MM does not seem to have the ability to do this and we lose our shape and fluidity in attack.

Yes he has had some excellent games the Grand Final he was superb but they are the exception rather than the rule and personally I find myself thinking it is more of a damage limitation exercise when he is on the pitch rather than an opportunity to kick on.

I would rather see a scooting hooker on the bench than a hooker that struggles to get us on the front foot much of the time.

As for his international selection, I think that says more about the general level of British hookers than acts as a reflection for his excellent performance, but personally I still do not think he deserves to be in there off the back of his form this season, Roby and Houghton for me at the moment.

Higham wasn't/isn't a patch on McIllorum in any aspect. And while I don't rate MM that highly at all, Highams just god awful.

Agreed Jonh.
I actually like the look of Houghton. Developing well, no doubt his game would develop 10 fold under an excellent coach, anyone who pushes on under Agar deserves a medal.

Rinaldi over MM all week long!

may be wrong on this as I will hold my hand up I have had a few beers but once again it seemed to me we lost all momentum in attack and defence looked unorganized when we interchanged hookers.

I noticed that aswell, one of our weaknesses on a very strong bench

Did we score any points with him on the pitch.... Rogues care to argue in his defence again?

Being a great defender might be enough in a position like the backrow but in a key position like hooker you need to offer a lot in attack. Currently he offers nothing and needs some time working on it.

to be fair to him, Sam and Deacs went off at about the same time as he came on aswell. That had alot to do with how disjointed we went.

He was not amongst the worst performers tonight by a long shot. I thought he did alright. Just when he was at hooker, especially in the 2nd half was the period we were pegged back in our own half and giving a lot of cheap ball away.

Clearly all McIlorum's fault. Drop him immediately.

We can't have world class players in every position... People really need to smell the coffee!!

McIlorum wasn't that bad. As Newton Warrior said he came on when Sam and Deacon went off and the team had been looking quite tired right from the start. He played fairly well and also made a try saving tackle.

We're just getting the same scapegoats after every game now. The whole team was off the pace and all you get is "Joel's not a centre" "McIlorum's not a hooker" "Deacon cant defend"

The fact is the whole team was off the pace tonight after a tough game last weekend. We've now got a week to get things right for the semi. It wasnt pretty but we showed, as we have at other times this season, that we can not play well and still come away with 2 points. I'll definitely take that at the KC which is never an easy place to go. Champion qualities.

Not saying we can but I really think he needs to work on his attack big time. He needs to offer more. Hooker has become probably the most important position on the field, the best teams have great hookers. McIlorum needs some work. I still see huge potential in him though.

He did well tonight.

Caused problems when running the ball and rattled a few in defence. Same old game from him really and yes he isn't going to run a game but that's not his game.

Tommy should be playing more minutes IMO allowing Micky Mac to just blitz some tired bodies for 20-25 mins.