Britain's unhappy hooker shortage

No sooner has the game in Britain digested the good, if overdue, news that the 2001 Kangaroos are to play Tests in strife-torn Huddersfield, Bolton and Wigan after all, than it begins to count the players who will not be able to try to catch them on the hop as they get off the plane.

With no time for a warm-up match, the chance of Australia being caught cold at the McAlpine Stadium on 11 Nov-ember is a real one, but how much more confident the Great Britain coach, David Waite, would be if he was as spoilt for choice in the crucial position of hooker as he looked to be a couple of weeks ago. Keiron Cunningham of St Helens, widely recognised as the world's best, would have been the obvious first choice, but Waite would have also wanted Wigan's Terry Newton somewhere in his 17. Just in case, there was Bradford's James Lowes, who played so well in last Saturday's Grand Final, waiting in the wings.

Now there are none of them. Cunningham's hernia operation is almost certain to keep him out of the whole series, Newton's broken wrist has put him out of at least the first Test, and Lowes cannot be drafted in because of an exploratory knee operation.

That leaves Hull's relatively inexperienced Paul King as the only fit hooker in the squad. King is a player of great potential, possibly as a prop rather than a hooker, but it is a little early for him to be shouldering this sort of responsibility. He looks certain to get a chance to show what he can do in the Test against France in Agen next Friday, though, along with other eyebrow-raising selections such as the Wigan winger David Hodgson, and the Warrington half-back Lee Briers.

With several of the Wigan and Bradford players who took part in the Grand Final being given a rest, fringe players get the opportunity to impress. For Huddersfield, how- ever, Waite will want all his remaining big guns fit and raring to go, but his next disappointment is likely to involve the Sydney City second-rower Adrian Morley.

Morley has flown back from Australia desperate to play a part in the series, in spite of complications from the arm he broke in mid-season. "The club didn't want me to come at all, but I argued and got them to agree," he said. It is only a very conditional permission, though. In the week leading up to the first Test, Morley must have the arm X-rayed and the X-rays sent through to Sydney City's medical team. "They have the final say," he said, and it would take a real optimist to imagine that they are going to blithely tell him to play and hope for the best.

That could open up a window of opportunity for a very different player, Bradford's Mike Forshaw, who retired from international rugby after last year's World Cup, but who has played so well this season that Waite and his assistant, the Bradford coach, Brian Noble, have talked him into a change of heart. Forshaw lacks Morley's tackle-breaking power, but his work-rate and intelligence make him the best replacement if, as seems likely, Waite needs one.

Many of this week's headlines have concerned the sel-ection of an Australian, the Bradford full-back Michael Withers, in the British squad. It is a decision that offends many traditionalists, but there is nothing unusual about it in the context of world sport; British rugby league has been slow to follow the trend of picking players on their ante-cedents and residence rather than just their birthplace.

Mind you, it would be a brave decision to pick him at full-back ahead of Kris Radlinski. Withers is more likely to be used in another of his positions – and one in which his new nation is notably weak – on the wing.