The winger couldn’t believe his teammate had been overlooked earlier this year
Joe Burgess believes Brian McDermott should be looking at Tom Davies this autumn
Hull KR winger Joe Burgess was shocked to see fellow winger Tom Davies overlooked by the national team earlier this year.
Burgess was a member of Shaun Wane’s England squad for the Ashes last season with the Robins man being selected on the back of his form during KR’s treble winning season.
Unfortunately, the wide man hasn’t quite managed to hit the same heights on a consistent basis this time around under Willie Peters and he wasn’t surprised to be left out of Brian McDermott’s first England squad, when it was confirmed in June.
However, he didn’t expect to see his teammate Davies left out by McDermott, who gave Dom Young, Matty Ashton and Tom Johnstone the nod as the only specialist wingers in his 38-man squad.
Dean Hadley, Jez Litten and Mikey Lewis were selected by McDermott but there was no room for the former Wigan Warriors and Catalans Dragons outside back.
Davies has scored 12 Super League tries this season, but no one has carried the ball more than him across the division and only Charlie Staines of Catalans has amassed more metres over the course of the season with 3886 to Davies’ 3778.
He has also been labelled KR’s most consistent player by Willie Peters, who has made his own case for the 29-year-old to be involved in the World Cup down under, and that’s a notion Burgess more than agrees with.
“I’m not surprised that I’m not in,” Burgess said on the current England squad when speaking to the press earlier this week. “If I was performing how I did last year and I didn’t get named then I’d be frustrated but my performances have been a bit up and down.
“Tom I’m surprised at. He’s been the most consistent and probably our best player this year. I’m quite gutted he wasn’t named in it.
“There’s no saying he won’t get named in it. Obviously this time last year I wasn’t in the training squad but then I ended up getting picked at the end of the year.
“It’s never too late and there’s still plenty of rugby to go and plenty of big games to go. I don’t think about it too much, I just think about performing and that’s what I did last year.”