I couldn't sleep last night so was running through some England teams in my head to try send me off, I got to the point where I reckon you can now name 3 decentish sides, which I'd say it's been a long time since you could do the same before! Anyway, 3 rough teams you could select, obviously peoples individual choices will vary but it's to highlight more the depth rather than selection preferences.

Tomkins - - Hardacre - Lomax
Charnley - - Briscoe - Cockayne
Watkins - - Atkins - Ratchford
Cudjoe - - Reed - Goulding
Hall - - Broughton - McGilvery
Sinfield - - Widdop - McGuire
Brough - - Chase - Myler
Graham - - Mossop - L Burgess
Roby - - McIlorum - Moore
S.Burgess -Morley - Bailey
Ellis - - Ablett - Bateman
Hock - Wilkin - Westerman
Westwood - O'Loughlin

Burrow - Robinson - Houghton
Hill - Carvell - Lynch
Farrell - Tickle - Clarkson
Crabtree - JJB - Taylor

I was just reading an article about football, saying that this season only 176 out of 480 players picked in the Premiership to the end of January were English - about 37%.

It isn't that long ago that GB had virtually no threequarters of any note whatsoever, and certainly less depth throughout the team, in large part due to the ridiculous number of imports.

Standards may have fallen a bit due to the loss of journeymen Aussies to make up the numbers, but it will be interesting to see what the state of the game is in say 5 years when everyone has lost most of their 'star' overseas players but have been forced to rely on juniors for a long period of time.

I would also add Tom Lineham, Daryl Clark, George Burgess and Brett Ferres as players who would make those teams.

Greg Eden
Ben Jones-Bishop
Rhys Evans
Michael Shenton
Tom Lineham
Luke Gale
Matty Smith
Brett Ferres
Tony Clubb
Danny Kirmond/Simon Grix
George Burgess
Shaun Lunt
Louis McCarthy Scarsbrook

res: Daryl Clark, Kyle Amor, Ben Currie, Michael Lawrence.

No love for Kieran Dixon? I would say he's moving himself into contention with the performances he's been putting in this season.

Did you see him against HKR :/

Your third team must be really good - they can afford to start with only 12 players and no loose forward

I agree Ferris is a good shout these days but some of the other son this list would be woefully out oftheir depth.

Has got super Ryan Bailey in there though...he must count for 2 players

He's also got Jon Wilkin. So we're covered for if we lose and we need someone to whinge like a little tart after the game.

This is the frustrating thing, we have a lot of depth, and some fantastic young players, but I got feeling McNamara will select the same old come WC year.

However in 5 years time i think we could have a formidable England side with Bateman, Tomkins, Ward, Clark, Currie the Burgess's. They are some fantastic young players coming through!