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all seems a little odd. no england games this year, including long term injured players.. would be good to hear more on what this is going to be about.

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It's all a bit of a nonsense really - 30 UK based players selected but in reality only 10 of them will be in a match day squad. I get it's about bringing all the current and seemingly future England players together but does seem like a very large group when there's such a lack of fixtures and doesn't include the guaranteed starters from the NRL. 

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7 minutes ago, hunsletgreenandgold said:

It's all a bit of a nonsense really - 30 UK based players selected but in reality only 10 of them will be in a match day squad. I get it's about bringing all the current and seemingly future England players together but does seem like a very large group when there's such a lack of fixtures and doesn't include the guaranteed starters from the NRL. 

"A Fleet in being"

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The performance squad will meet four times this year (April, June, August and September) with Wayne Bennett attending the June get together.

Of course we are all disappointed that England are not getting a mid year game this season but bringing together the squad, along with the Knights, is important in defining how the team wants to play and monitor the progress of the players.

This type of structure is part of any professional national setup and It is no coincidence that the performance of the English national team started to improve when Steve McNamara introduced these events during his tenure as coach.

I'm really not sure why anyone would see the continued development of our national squad in a negative light.

"The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris

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34 minutes ago, hunsletgreenandgold said:

It's all a bit of a nonsense really - 30 UK based players selected but in reality only 10 of them will be in a match day squad. I get it's about bringing all the current and seemingly future England players together but does seem like a very large group when there's such a lack of fixtures and doesn't include the guaranteed starters from the NRL. 

If you take out the NRL contingent the remainder has some difficult choices, if it there was a game.  Barring the NRL 8 id go:

Lomax, Makinson, Connor, Percival, McGilvaray, Clarke, Watts, Thompson, Ratchford as the 17.

A lot of good payers missing out, whichever way you look at it. A few years ago, naming the team was quite straightforward.

 

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Liam Watts, never considered as an international at Hull FC, perhaps due to his disciplinary record.

Now he's at Cas, never seemingly penalised, sin binned or sent off and now picked for an England elite squad.

Watts changed?

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1 hour ago, Dunbar said:

The performance squad will meet four times this year (April, June, August and September) with Wayne Bennett attending the June get together.

Of course we are all disappointed that England are not getting a mid year game this season but bringing together the squad, along with the Knights, is important in defining how the team wants to play and monitor the progress of the players.

This type of structure is part of any professional national setup and It is no coincidence that the performance of the English national team started to improve when Steve McNamara introduced these events during his tenure as coach.

I'm really not sure why anyone would see the continued development of our national squad in a negative light.

Thanks for that... that was the sort of information I was meaning. That makes sense... but would be good to have a game v say france in june when wayne is over and he has the squad together. Even if it is a wednesday night (but not at leigh!)

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3 hours ago, Dunbar said:

The performance squad will meet four times this year (April, June, August and September) with Wayne Bennett attending the June get together.

Of course we are all disappointed that England are not getting a mid year game this season but bringing together the squad, along with the Knights, is important in defining how the team wants to play and monitor the progress of the players.

This type of structure is part of any professional national setup and It is no coincidence that the performance of the English national team started to improve when Steve McNamara introduced these events during his tenure as coach.

I'm really not sure why anyone would see the continued development of our national squad in a negative light.

Cos some people just have negativity as default. Good post.

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4 hours ago, hunsletgreenandgold said:

It's all a bit of a nonsense really - 30 UK based players selected but in reality only 10 of them will be in a match day squad. I get it's about bringing all the current and seemingly future England players together but does seem like a very large group when there's such a lack of fixtures and doesn't include the guaranteed starters from the NRL. 

Thirty strikes me as being the correct number. 13 v 13 training runs and plenty of competition for places. 

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I might be a bit cynical here but I would guess that the RFL has sod all money to fund any GB get togethers. The England performance squad is part of the Sport England funding so it is "as you were" pretend GB doesn't exist for a while. Even though England has 0 fixtures in 2019.

Just one of the nuances that the 'bring back GB" cause overlooks.

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3 minutes ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

I wouldn’t have Ben Currie in there. Great player when fit but he’s not been fit long enough for the past couple of years. Too soon for his inclusion, I feel. The same for Stevie Ward.

Luke Gale and Tom Johnstone are out for the season, so shouldn’t be in. 

If this were a squad assembled to play a competitive game then excluding the players above would be a fair call but that is not the point of these sessions.  This is a build up to the 2021 World Cup where the players who are contenders for that tournament are introduced into the England setup and monitored/mentored through to the competition.  All four of those mentioned above will be in contention and so should be involved in the process.

"The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris

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7 hours ago, Old Frightful said:

Liam Watts, never considered as an international at Hull FC, perhaps due to his disciplinary record.

Now he's at Cas, never seemingly penalised, sin binned or sent off and now picked for an England elite squad.

Watts changed?

Watts was the best prop in SL before the last world cup and could have been the difference, his omission was bizarre in the extreme IMHO even despite his so called disciplinary issues. At his best he's James Graham level, but he's sort of a Paul King type, has all the attributes but loses the plot too often, maybe being back at Cas he's in a less toxic environment for him?

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2 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

Mike Cooper seems unfortunate to miss out. 

Agreed. He is playing very well, has bags of experience and only 30.

I guess he suffers from being in perhaps Englands strongest position. 

"The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris

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57 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

If this were a squad assembled to play a competitive game then excluding the players above would be a fair call but that is not the point of these sessions.  This is a build up to the 2021 World Cup where the players who are contenders for that tournament are introduced into the England setup and monitored/mentored through to the competition.  All four of those mentioned above will be in contention and so should be involved in the process.

But how can you have players in a squad to build up to a World Cup when at least two are missing at least nine months, ones just got back from an eleven month lay-off and the other is made from biscuits? Given the records of Gale in the past year and Currie and Ward’s over the past two-three years, I wouldn’t hold my breath that they’d be available in 2021. 

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2 minutes ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

But how can you have players in a squad to build up to a World Cup when at least two are missing at least nine months, ones just got back from an eleven month lay-off and the other is made from biscuits? Given the records of Gale in the past year and Currie and Ward’s over the past two-three years, I wouldn’t hold my breath that they’d be available in 2021. 

That is why it is a 30 man squad.  Add the NRL players and you have a circa 40 man squad from which we will eventually select the bulk of the 22 man World Cup squad.

Some players who are in form today will be injured in 2021 when the World Cup comes around and some who are injured now will be fit and firing.  Some players nowhere near contention today will gallop into contention (Tom Holroyd anyone!).

But through all this you have to instill a sense of team into the England setup, get all the squad thinking the same way about what it means to play for England and how the coach wants them to play. Plus the England staff get to monitor the progress of the players themselves.

If England do well in their home World Cup in two and a half years, these camps will have played their part in this success.

"The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris

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Interesting that the BBC article states England will compete in the World 9s in the Autumn - I hadn’t seen that confirmed anywhere else to date?

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