Exiles' State of Origin pedigree gives England a reason to fear

There was an extra edge when the Hull players gathered at their Brantingham training ground last Wednesday to watch the first game of the State of Origin series, one of the highlights of the Australian sporting year and a must-see for rugby league devotees in this country. The club's captain, Craig Fitzgibbon, and the prop Mark O'Meley are New South Wales veterans, with 21 Origin appearances between them, so there were huge cheers at their expense from the rest of the squad when the Queensland captain, Darren Lockyer, sent his brilliant full-back Billy Slater over for a dramatic late matchwinner in Brisbane. But for Fitzgibbon and O'Meley, and a couple of Hull's homegrown majority, the ferocity and intensity of Queensland's 16-12 win was a reminder of the challenges they face at Headingley on Friday week. After four years of thrashing France in their mid-season international – enjoyable enough but useless in terms of preparing for the greater challenges of playing Australia and New Zealand, as well as hugely damaging for the French – England will this year take on the Exiles, a team drawn from the overseas players employed in the Super League. For Tom Briscoe, the powerful young Hull wing who will surely be the first three-quarter selected when the England coach, Steve McNamara, finalises his squad this week before an official announcement on Wednesday, that promises to be a far tougher test. "You only have to look at Fitzy and Ogre [O'Meley], and listen to them talk about it, to realise the sort of game it's going to be," said the 21-year-old, who has been the best wing in the Super League this season, three years after he was a shock inclusion in Hull's team at Wembley for a 2008 Challenge Cup final defeat by St Helens shortly after taking his A-levels. "They thought they'd given up the chance of playing representative rugby like State of Origin when they came over here. This Exiles game gives them the chance to get together with a bunch of other Aussies and Kiwis, and I know they're taking that very seriously. That's the sort of blokes they are anyway, to be honest. "We know the Exiles are going to be very formidable opposition. But that's what we need if we're going to get better in the Four Nations this year and then with the next World Cup coming up in a couple of years. I'm really looking forward to it." Hull's televised game against Huddersfield on Sunday lunchtime will give Briscoe's team-mate Kirk Yeaman, who is Super League's leading try-scorer, one last chance to press his claims for a recall at centre, especially if he is marking Leroy Cudjoe, the young Giants three-quarter who is another contender. "Kirk would love another shot, and the way he's been playing I think he deserves it," added Briscoe, a quiet, thoughtful character who gave this interview from a fishing stool on a river bank near his West Yorkshire home – an unusual, although not unique, mode of relaxation when he is away from Hull and rugby league. "But in the couple of squad camps we've had this season you can tell we have got a bit of competition for places now, with a few good young lads coming through." Briscoe already sounds like an elder statesman, and if the gifted teenage Leeds back Kallum Watkins were fit, he could easily be left as one of the more experienced backs in McNamara's team. Instead Jermaine McGillvary, a bustling 23-year-old who was a late convert to the game from basketball and has been outstanding on the wing for Huddersfield this season, seems likely to be the only international debutant, with Warrington's Chris Bridge and Michael Shenton of St Helens in the centres. Compare that to a possible Exiles back-line of Joel Monaghan (if the knee injury suffered in the thrashing of Leeds on Friday is not serious), his even taller Warrington team-mate Matt King, and the effective Wigan left-wing pair of George Carmont and Pat Richards, Super League's reigning Man of Steel, and there is a first indication of why the foreigners could even go into the match as favourites. England's strength will be in the pack, where Jamie Peacock has returned to fitness in the nick of time to reclaim the captaincy from his fellow props Adrian Morley and James Graham, who filled in when he was injured last autumn, and the St Helens hooker James Roby and Wigan's captain Sean O'Loughlin have been in outstanding form. But the Exiles will not exactly be soft up front either, with players such as Tony Puletua and Kylie Leuluai to back up Fitzgibbon and O'Meley. It is unrealistic to expect the game to match the superlative standards that State of Origin has set over the past 30 years, but it should still be quite a night.