Shaun Wane has a little Sam Tomkins doll that’s been sitting by his bedside for the last two years and eight months.
Now and again he’ll give Little Sam a pat on the head and whisper reassuring words of World Cup glory. Wane used to have a Joel Tomkins doll too - but that had to go to the charity shop after it misbehaved. Captain Sam has always been the most talismanic of Wane’s charges and he will have been pencilled in to lead his team since the day the 58-year-old took charge back in February 2020.
He played his best rugby league under the gruff tutelage of his Wigan mentor, from snappable sixth-former to fast-twitch untouchable. Some elements of those days have gone. The chippy temperament is still there, even more puckish now as the years slip by. The pace that made fools of many is not.
Like Jonny Lomax, another ravaged in the past by injuries, the brain from backplay is Sam Tomkins’ major weapon. He will keep Jack Welsby out of the number one shirt (or number 456B if you’re Australian) when England announce their team and that could be Wane’s masterstroke - or undoing. Because in Welsby, England have a player at his no-bandages physical peak who is playing with a beguiling combination of size, smarts, speed and, crucially, confidence.
You’ve got Joseph Sua’ali’i - we’ve got Jack Welsby. That manifests itself not in post Grand Final sunglasses and cigars, more a youthful shrug. Why care about the rest? And yet there’s a chance Welsby will not even be in the England starting line-up if Wane opts for the more prosaic approach and selects Marc Sneyd in his halves.
Yup. England could start without potentially their most influential player. This is no Sneyd-bashing exercise. There’s a good reason for him to be in that team and if England are to progress as autumn sneaks into winter, Snyed could be key. So is Welsby the super sub? He can cover the entire backline and down the line when that frame fills out even more you could see a formidable old school loose forward emerging. We shall see.
A lot has been made of the players missing from the ranks and while the coach has played it down you suspect Mrs Wane’s breakfast table has suffered a few giant fist bangs to cause havoc amongst the cornflakes. “Clatter. Sorry again, luv.” Best prop (Alex Walmsley), best halfback (Lomax), two best strike centres (Harry Newman and Marc Percival)…it’s been a cruel succession of withdrawals which no other nation has come close to suffering. So England go into the tournament certainly understrength but without the pressure a major tournament at home brings to the sports of cricket, football and rugby union.
Many have moaned about this being a Wigan side but other than his old mucker Michael McIlorum, who else would have made the squad above those selected? The McIlorum doll could sit on Mrs Wane’s side of the bed, another favourite warrior and Warrior to call upon. When Steve McNamara was England coach, McIlorum was one of the first names on his teamsheet too.
He brings a near pathological hatred of the opposition which can intimidate and inspire. Yet McNamara was World Cup coach nine years ago and those legs don’t dart from dummy half with quite the same threat. If you need a reminder on what McIlorum can bring watch his performance for Ireland in Port Moresby against PNG in the last World Cup. That will be needed again but England may need more than defensive steel from their hooker.
A Kruise Leeming, Daryl Clark and Paul McShane WhatsApp group would be an intriguing read. We should mention discipline here too. The final Super League and NRL games of McIlorum, Jon Bateman and Victor Radley saw one red card and three yellow cards between them, Radley so greedy he picked up two. And skipper Tomkins’ behaviour in that game won’t have won him extra Christmas choccies from referee James Child.
I won’t invoke the barnstorming chorus of the tournament welcome headline act and say I predict a riot. But we must hope Wane’s pre match tub-thumping galvanises a team who are realistically some distance from Australia and New Zealand. There are several positives.
The England back row is as good as any. Tommy Makinson would be any team’s starting winger. Kallum Watkins, Andy Ackers, Matty Lees, Joe Batchelor and Dom Young have peaked at the exact moment and are in rip-roaring form. We have a proud, rogueish, fascinating English coach who would play for 80 minutes on his crutches even now if it came down to it (and who doesn’t really have a Sam Tomkins doll).
When the dust settles, and Eddie Hemmings emerges blinking from the cupboard at Warrington Golf Club he was locked away in, we shall see if Wane’s world was enough at this giddy level. I do hope so. Strap yourselves in, this could be a bumpy ride.
