Storm frees Kidwell for Test

[StormBec]

DAVID Kidwell is in line to captain New Zealand after Melbourne Storm agreed to release the rugged back-rower for the Kiwis' June 27 Test against Great Britain.

Kidwell will play in Storm's Friday night game against the Bulldogs at Olympic Park on June 23, before making the dash to England for the one-off Test.
Kidwell was one of five NRL-based players named in the Kiwi squad yesterday, with the majority made up of English Super League players.

Storm was not asked to release winger Jake Webster.

Kidwell, 29, said he would be honoured if given the opportunity to lead his nation for the first time.

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common ... 23,00.html

Congratulations to Kiddy if he gets to captain the Kiwis 

[bula]

What about Webster? 
He's their best winger! He's in good form also

[Thunderstruck]

maybe they wanna test some of their english-based players instead having already seen what the nrl-based kiwis are capable of.

[Fampa]

I think it's great that the Storm can release a player to let them pursue their international career as well.  To me it shows forsight and will work in our advantage should another international player come up on the market.

Unfortunately for Brian Carney, apart from being GB's best winger, he is also, for the time being, a Novocastrian.  They will not release him to play in an IRL sanctioned test match because it is a one off and they feel it has no merit.  Since when was it Newcastle's decision to decide how important  internationals were to our game.

Perhaps if we had an international competition worth talking about, this whole players defecting to rugby union issue would never come up.  Not that's it's ever really affected them....

[PD]

Unfortunately for Brian Carney, apart from being GB's best winger, he is also, for the time being, a Novocastrian.

I always hated the non release crap that clubs used re : international games,but being a Wigan fan who suffered two seasons of Brian Carney's faked injury crap,unless he was playing for GB,then I can well understand NTL's attitude.Wigan had a huge chunk of salary cap tied up with a player who constantly had injuries at club level,then miraculously healed up & had ripping games in internationals.