I think the biggest brain farts came from Graham! Widdop stood up today better than I thought considering IMO

You do realise my post was referring to before today's game?

As you quoted my post, would just like to say thought Tomkins was excellent defensively today. Weirdly though, I thought offensively he was lacking.

If you are referring to today, then get your lenses changed. Graham was absolutely outstanding, and the foundation England built on.

Possibly



Not sure Chris Hill has been best prop.....but he has been one of the better consistently good but not outstanding individuals.

I am happy to state Sam Burgess showed today why he has the reputation he has....fantastic performance. However, Graham is still England's best prop IMO. I love his effort, commitment, go forward AND skill at passing at the line.

What a performance today .... Superb match. Feel genuinely gutted for the players. Without a doubt Widdop justified his selection. I was wrong. AND happy to be wrong. Played like that there can be no doubt RL is by far the best team sport in the world. Fantastic: cannot say it enough

Yes realised too late, apologies, but never said Graham played poorly just that he made a couple terrible split second decisions but luckily England weren't punished. I would suggest he dives on the ball rather than kicking it into the oppositions hands on the last play which could have led to a dangerous Kiwi counter attack had the ref not blown up for a knock on.

Awesome match though!

Our left side was not so good on defence either. Hall let one in and was lucky it wasn't two a few minutes later. He did this in the WCC which also cost us. I thought our right side could have made more of the chances they created but the NZ defence was too good.

Overall great effort and we made enough chances for a deserved win. Discipline and errors let us down. Sam Burgess, Graham and Sinfield stood out with good effort from Widdup.

I felt the coach brought on Burrow too soon. He could have been more effective in the second half with our first choice props on and when NZ were looking dazed.

So, Widdop showed his NRL class then?

He went ok. Our attacking patterns were set by the SL class of Sinfield, Roby and O'Loughlin.

Our 2 starting props certainly did the NRL proud though.

It seems wrong and harsh to try and highlight individual mistakes in a game like today's. Every single player gave it everything, and to make the wrong read or drop a ball in a game with such intensity is understandable. It was played in the right spirit and I don't know how more of them weren't injured. A brilliant advert for our sport and I'm immensely proud of them all, and to be a rugby league fan.

How much game time did Ablett get today?

Enough to share his experiences with his Leeds team mates of the same bench club.

Our right side could have made more of their chances, but I'd say that there were some poor decisions rather than just quality defence. Think the NZ left side was weak, and there were half-chances where 1) Watkins passed too early, 2) Tomkins held on with an overlap, 3) Charnley was positioned in front of Watkins denying him a line-breaking pass, 4) Charnley couldn't finish off a clean break.

None of these were terrible pieces of play, but I reckon the Hayne and Morris partnership would have scored from at least a couple of them. And that's the difference.

Agree with you about Burrow though. Roby and Graham were having hugely influential games. Taking them both off at the same time was a mistake. Burrow is best brought on when the game needs changing, which it didn't.