Yeah, I thought the selection of George over Atkins and Bridge was a bit of an odd one - I hadn't realised he had been that good this year. As noted above, it's hard to be objective about these things. People are either biased or simply skewed towards their own team on the basis that they've seen more of them in the flesh.

It is indeed a strange one... if you put both centres up against carmont... they both have



more tries

more assists

more tackle busts

more clean breaks

less missed tackles



bizarre selection.

and yet when people say roby is better than monaghan and quote his stats as proof, you lot are up in arms...

I can't believe that Matt King, Michael Monaghan and Ryan Atkins didn't get in.



Matt King has been outstanding and minimum i'd have put him in ahead of Joel Monaghan on the wing, Ryan Atkins is showing a lot more consistency now and i'd say he's the most leathel centre in SL, Michael Monaghan is consistently pure class.



I would have gone for the following side.



1. S Tomkins

2. M King

3. K Yeaman

4. R Atkins

5. T Briscoe

6. L Briers

7. R Chase

8. G Carvell

9. M Monaghan

10. J Graham

11. J Tomkins (Yeh he's currently at centre but deserves to be in)

12. B Westwood

13. S O'Loughlin (Not a fan but their is nobody currently better at 13)

no one is really up in arms are they?



people just have an opinion..... if you look at stats then roby does go in ahead of monaghan.... so bridge and atkins should have gone in ahead of yeaman and carmont.



which way do you want it?

I wonder if the votes were split fairly evenly between them? I think the journos who voted for this got to pick a top three in each position and maybe they didn't want to vote for both of the centres at a particular club. Both Atkins and Bridge have had great seasons and it would be difficult to choose between them. Carmont and Joel Tomkins on the other hand...

Or people didn't have their Wire blinkers on, and can tell that George Carmont is a great player having a great season.

Quite correct. The journos nominate 3 for each position - 5 points for 1st choice, 3 for 2nd and 1 for 3rd - though wings, centres, props and second-rowers are a little hard done by in this system. There's twice as many of them, compared to the other positions, yet they only get the same amount of votes.

I didn't say he wasn't, I was just saying that he's far and away the best centre at Wigan, but it's more difficult to decide which of Wire's centres has had the better season.

its no wonder bridge or atkins didnt get in then.

There are good reasons for the vast majority of people's preferences. Club loyalty usually ends up as the determinate factor. The only player that doesn't deserve to be in the 'running' for me is Joel Tomkins. His defensive is bobbins.

It is at centre, just doesn't have the intelligence (yet hopefully) positionally with regards to overlaps, although the fact that Charnley is outside of him doesn't help either.



Not sure why anyone would be considering him for the dream team either at centre or 2nd row this year though.