Looked very nervous. Scary to think he might not make it into the Australia team, isn't it?

When i comes to Long I’m not going to change anyone's mind on here so why argue.



Far to many people get wound up on here when someone disagrees with them.

Too right aswell as guys like Brett Stewart, Trent Barrett, Cooper Cronk, Michael Jennings etc etc who probably won't be selected in the 17 yet would go down as English ledgends.



Our hopes lie fully in the pack.

Hear about the young lad (from Halifax I think) who played full back in the Toyota Cup Grand Final. The Aussie posters were praising him and when Aussies praise a Brit you know he's a bit special.

I understood where you was coming from re-Long.



Maybe 2 seasons ago I'd of jumped at the oppurtunity to sign him for Wigan. As for now, well I'm not too sure. He certainly would direct us around the park, but would the Wigan crowd warm to him? Remains to be seen. Also as someone else said he has been quite poor this season.



We still could do with a 7 though IMO.

And thats why we will never win



Their strength in depth in the backs is phenomenal and it doesn't bode well when you just look at the HB's



Barrett

Lockyer

Prince

Orford

Kimorley

Anasta

Thurston

Inglis















Each one is better than any of our backs.

They could have a million crackerjack half backs, but at the end of the day they can only play two of them.

There are defiantly better options out there but that's not to say Long would have been a bad option either.



I posted earlier about the depth there is in the NRL at HB so surely there has to be a player like Dobson playing in the reserves somewhere not getting game time?



Instead of looking for the likes of Orford lets look at players like Luke Walsh etc who will give a far better service to the club in the long run.



Lets try to find a long term partner for Sam.



Lets hope Maguire knows some good young talent out there.

But the difference is each one has to be on the top of their game as they know they have players like Barrett ready to step in.



Can the same really be said of ours?



I'm a firm believer that competition breads success.



The Aussies aren’t weak in any position in the backs which shows how far we have to go and how good we have to be on a one off day to beat them.

The pressure is there and I'd love that to be the case with us. However like I said, they can only play two half backs at a time. Look at Jarryd Hayne this morning. Arguably the greatest player on Earth at the moment and he was well off his game. He himself admitted to overplaying it.

Billy Slater made some really poor decisions in the World Cup final and we all know what happened that day.

Even the best have off days.

True but very often is it that you get into a situation were you have to just beat Australia once. In fact it only happens every four years and then you've got to get to the final to have a chance.



Other than that it's normally the best of three etc which is why we haven't one very many.



We can win the odd game but never back it up with a repeat victory in the next.

Yeah read about him on the Sydney Morning Herald website. They described him as a Billy Slater clone! If he's half as good i'll be happy.



Hope the lad continues to develope and if he really is that special McGuire can tempt him to leave Melbourne for Sunny Wigan!