Yesterday's game was won in last weekend's press conferences, Tim Sheens bought that referee into refereeing how he wanted his team to play, & for the first half England battered them around the ruck. I feel the Aussies bench won them the game up against a bench of half fit players for England, Peacock toiled despite carrying a knock to his credit. Ginger Graham was yet again pi$$ poor at this level, get Carvell in for next week & the final. Which brings me round to the coach & his team selections. McNamara was a rubbish player & he's a rubbish coach as far as I'm concerned, the Rangi Chase love affair was exposed yesterday, it's a total joke. What is the point in folks coaching youngsters, nurturing them, getting them picked by SL clubs in this country for the greedy SL clubs to pick Johnny foreigner in front of them at both club & national level ? Hang your head in shame McNamara, you are a flop, you're gonna have to win this tournament for me to change my opinion.
The RFL are a bigger joke than ever, first they can't sell out the national stadium for the prestige challenge cup final & now they claim 42,000 attended yesterday, that'd be over half of the capacity, first i don't believe that figure & second they should be able to sell it out for an England fixture nevermind a double-header !
Well done to Gaz Widdop for smacking Watmough, some of our forwards should have had that desire in the first ten minutes and after the Tony Williams attack on Westwood which went unpunished, that should have been the licence for any player to take liberties without getting punished, we're too soft.
Don't expect NZ to play nicely next week either, unfortunately i see them knocking us around, get Bailey & Carvell in there and give it to 'em and rotate Sinfield with Roby at dummy half with Widdop at half back, we should approach next week as as if we're going to war cos it's international rugby league & once again we're proving we're miles off what it takes to be successful.

I was with you Colin but then you went and ruined it with "get Bailey"

No i wouldn't do that. SL is just getting better and better and is producing players to match the Aussies. London in particular is taking the game by storm. Leave things as they are.

Not enough foreigners in't team. Rubbish. McNamara!

How is the most in form ENGLISH half back in SL not picked???

Rob Burrow has to play, we lack that incisive edge in attack Rob will give us that not some NZ reject!

RFL = massive digraceful fail.

What must the Kiwi's be thinking seeing Rangi chase run out with an England shirt on, embarassing.

I thought I was watching Leeds, as every play had to go through Sinfield. He'll never be international class. Missed a certain try in first half when he hesitated with the pass then threw it forward, made at least 3 other errors. And what's was the point of having Widdop on the field, when Sinfield continued to try and take control all the time. For all the territory we had, other than Sam Tomkins we had no creativity, whereas the Aussies get in our 20 and score almost every time. The gap in class is still there!!

Oh and there must be a better centre than Kirk Yeoman, although Reed isn't one of them!!

I went to London this weekend and had a great time. The double header idea is great. The first half of the first game was pretty poor but the competitiveness of the second half made up for that. There was lots of music and entertainment we had a great time. I read these boards about people complaining the RFL couldn't fill the stadium. Did any of these moaners go to the game? Probably not. 42k looked right we thought a little more when at the ground. As it holds 89k itt is always going to look a little sp. I think the RFL needs to keep faith with the double header like they have with the magic weekend as it was a great occasion for us that went

42k is a good crowd, where else could they have played up North and got that other than Old Trafford and I guess they would n't want two games being played in the same day. And they were at home.

Fair enough but was having a good time more to do with the 'crack' and having lots of beer rather than the matches? Yer England did well and were unlucky but you always had the feeling that the Aussies had enough in reserve to knock us over when they had to and they did.
As for Wales well now there is no SL club in Wales (not sad about that) how they going to produce a competitive team?
The thing is 42K is NOT good for a double header and it was England playing the Aussies at Wembley for the first time in 14 years so we should get a good crowd for that, yet despite trying to 'buy' a crowd like you could go for £30 which included an England shirt, the stadium was 18K down on what we should be getting, come on there should have been 60K there.
I did not go as the RFL have made it clear they do not want our support for their game so sod them I say. Until they give 'heartland' clubs some respect they can stick it.

I agree with Fax for life. . until the RFL show some committment to teams other than the SL why shoulds we give them any committment?

Playing at Wembley = massive mistake on the 5th of November lots of fans have familys and kids who all are not into watching RL so like many others i'm sure watched on the tv and then took the kids of to A Bonfire party.Family first RL second on this occasion. Why did Not play this double header in the north at either Elland Road or at The City of Manchester Stadium ( or what ever it is called now ) both did not have home football matches on Saturday.Money is tight and what little spare cash is most likely to be spent on Family activitys so to do both was not on.......

Nope, call me a moaner of you like, but a weekend at Wembley is off the radar for me. I couldn't give a monkeys if it isn't Halifax playing or a friend or relative.
Too much other stuff in life to be getting on with.

Congrats England - i take my hat off to them. Great result yesterday - makes my OP look silly. Good luck next week!!!

It was a good win. It would have been a great win if ALL the team had been English!