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MICHAEL SHENTON: England duty was a learning curve:
LAST week with England was a fantastic experience.
It was good to get together with some new guys from different clubs and to catch up with Tony Smith.
Being in the camp atmosphere was something I've never really experienced before, being away for a week with an international team. It was a good learning experience.
I think I'll be a better player for it, even though it was only a week. When you go into that kind of situation you have to be at the top of your game because you don't want to let yourself down in front of players from other clubs.
You have to train at an elite level the whole time. You want to show your best, so everyone puts extra in. You also learn a lot from the experienced guys.
It was a young squad, but there were some players with vast top-level experience and they help you out a lot.
You see a different side to people. I was a bit nervous going into it because I didn't know many people, but everyone had to gel quickly, because there was a mix of people from different teams. Leeds had the most players in the squad and there was only three of them.
You had to get out of your comfort zone and spend time with people you didn't know. They were a good bunch of guys and I made some new friends.
I roomed with Peter Fox, from Hull KR, who was my winger in the game. He was a good roomy – and he didn't snore.
The game against France was okay. It was a good performance from an England point of view, but personally I didn't really get involved. I tried to, but the ball didn't seem to come my way, which happens sometimes when you're playing in the centres.
I had to move quite a bit to get involved in the game, which isn't a bad thing, but it was one of those games when we seemed to go up the middle of them.
It was a good performance and a great experience for me, but I would have liked some more ball.
Internationally, the next step is the Four Nations at the end of the year and I definitely want to be part of that. But there's a lot of time between now and then. We've got 11 rounds of the regular season and then hopefully the play-offs and that's the important thing.
England has gone now and I've got to concentrate on the Tigers. If I can play well for Castleford, hopefully I'll keep my England place.
I think we can go to Huddersfield tomorrow with confidence.
We played them three weeks ago in the Challenge Cup and that was a game we should have won.
That took a lot out of us and we've now got to bounce back.
We were the better team for most of the game last time, we should have been through to the semi-finals, but we couldn't quite hang on at the end.
Now we've got a chance to get that out of our system.
It's not about revenge and it's not about Huddersfield, it's all about us this week.
We just need to get a result and get a bit of confidence back and then hopefully we can kick on for the rest of the year and finish in the top-eight.
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Weather for Leeds
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 8 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
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Temperature: 9 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
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