Lordy, agree with all that apart from the Ellis bit, who I'd stick at centre if Shenton's out.

Again this is what I dont get.
Are you saying that its ok for him to be a total pleb just because he can play RL really well?

I'd say Cockayne gets away with it and he's nowhere near the player Tomkins is, but this is an international thread and that would therefore be thread drift.

A lot of prodigiously talented youngsters are not liked because of their youthful arrogance. They mellow a bit as they mature - Boris Becker is a good example of this - everyone hated him when he won Wimbledon at 17, but now he's officially Britain's favourite German. Tomkins certainly sails close to the wind, but no more so than many other niggly pain in the @rse players - people's resentment of him IMO is directly proportionate to his quality.

That is total BS.
Calderwood is a tw@ at times, Briers is a tw@ at times, Penny is a tw@ at times, S Tomkins is a tw@ at times, J Tomkins is a Tw@ at times, Westwood is a Tw@ at times, Cooke is a Tw@ at times, Cockayne is a Tw@ at times etc,etc
You clearly think S Tomkins is being unfairly picked on.
It would seem you like him so much you are seeing things that are not there.

I really, really like him. Penny, for example, may be a tit, but no one is really that bothered because, whilst it's annoying, he does stupid stuff that you can laugh at that makes his cockiness look utterly misplaced. Calderwood also - hero and villain type player, so whilst irritating when playing well, you know that he'll make a mistake at some point that will make his swagger look a bit daft. Tomkins on the other hand is simply an excellent player and he knows it. He has the same swagger and cockiness of all those listed, but in his case the chances of him coming a cropper are far more limited because of his sublime talent and already pretty impressive delivery. His arrogance therefore is all the more annoying for those who chose to be annoyed by it, because it's so well-founded.

So in essence I are not allowed to be just as annoyed as I would be towards Calderwood (Who I consider to be as much of a pleb as Tomkins) because Calderwood may make the odd mistake.
Is that really what you are saying?
I think that pretty much confirms that you cannot look at the situation constructivly IMHO.

Here's a question for you. You see all the players you listed as irritating in equal measure. Why therefore have you not gone to the same lengths to post your delight at Cockayne being owned/making errors in the past on here in the same way you did with Tomkins? Perhaps it's because none of us are entirely impartial.

Oh I agree and if you had said that to me I would say that I completly agree.
Am I to take this to mean that you are admitting to perhaps being a little overeactive to my comment about me sending Robinson a gift?

No. Bad form to class the highlight of the weekend being England's only world class player getting a big hit. If it had been in the Wigan Saints game, for example, that would have been more understandable but not in an international.

So its ok to lighten the mood over a player getting banjoed one game but not in another