England players over 30

[FKAS]

Yep. I can see that happening.

If he can maintain last season’s form between now and the RWC, he’ll be hard to ignore.

Mako was pretty good with the Lions but still seems as though he’s declining and while Genge’s rate of development is decent, I don’t know if he’ll be a good enough to warrant being a guaranteed starter.

Anyone else like Obano, West etc. have a very long way to go before they’re at the same level is Marler IMO.

To be fair if Genge could play for England like he does for Tigers then that would be a real debate as to whether you went for the defensive rock Marler or the attacking dynamo Genge. As Genge can't seem to take his club form to international level it's a bit moot at present but could be an interesting one to watch should Genge get it to click for England between now and the world cup. Genge has taken somewhat of a leadership role for England and was the one arranging the social arrangements and welcoming the newbies in the summer.

Mako has the USP of acting as a link man in the forwards as well as a reliable truck in attacker and defence. Maybe lacks the scrum skill of the other two but his hands are exceptional for a prop.

Agree that the other looseheads are a way back, I thought midway through last season Obano might be bringing it closer but his form failed badly towards the end of the season and his sub appearances in the summer did nothing to convince anyone he was unfairly treated.

[jngf]

Bang on. I think there's a lot of people in the press celebrating the ascension of Adam Radwan on the basis of scoring a hattrick against Canada, which isn't exactly a difficult task. Granted, May needs to buck up his ideas for Gloucester this coming season, but I don't recall him having a bad game for England of late and he's only "dropped" in the sense that he was given a rest over the summer. 30 is way too arbitrary a number to be calling for his removal.

Same with BillyV - the talent is there, if he applies it. You wouldn't be binning him on age, only if he doesn't get his form back together.

Puja

This issue about talent is a thorny one - on the one hand Bill’s X factor has always been carrying in tight traffic better than any other England No.8’s albeit without the penetration of a few years ago and doing those great offloads too - on the other hand he’s got a front row (rather than back row) build, mobility and pace and because he isn’t any kind of lineout jumper, Eddie’s England sides have ended up compensating by either putting locks at 6 or making do with just the second rows as the key jumpers (in the case of Billy and Undercurry). To be fair this lack of lineout jumping could also be levelled at Sam Simmonds ( and one reason why I’d rather see him as a flanker than no.8 at test level). For me Dombrandt and a rejunvated Nathan Hughes (should that occur) have a nice balance between pace, the ability to jump in the lineout and hard and broken field carrying and actually both might provide better balance than Billy with Curry and Underhill going forwards ( though would be happy see Billy used as an impact player).