Looking forward to next years New Zealand series already, wonder if we will get to host a test at HQ.
Probably Huddersfield, Hull & Wigan will get em.

and Westwood. Takes a good front row and turns it into a monster pack with very little weakness.

For me none of our flair players have enough cutting edge. Watkins seemed to struggle in both defense and attack. Tomkins Whilst not bad did but have the intact with the ball that I expected.

Overall I am pleased with the progress and barring one or two the cute well be aeons for a few years

I hate auto correct on my phone

I don't think Danny Brough has the temperament for test matches. Agree apart from that. As the Eagle said, Westwood would help.

That said, Australia had better players missing than we did. So we're probably not far off NZ, but still a fair way off Australia.

I think we have got to the point now of being able to compete with Australia even with their best side which is a big enough stride to take in itself.We really did miss an big opportunity this time, forget the 'no try' debacle,had we carried on the first half game plan and taken it to OZ instead of going into our shell for half an hour i have no doubt we would have won handily.

We can match the Kiwis best as proved yesterday and will have a big opportunity to confirm that next year in the test series over here.Will be interesting to see who Australia have in line to succeed the likes of Cam Smith,Thurston and Slater, massive part of our destruction over the last decade, who are all coming into their 30's now and can't have too much left in the tank at international level.2 of them were missing this series and we have seen how vulnerable they were. Australia always have find top players to take over, always have as long as i have watched RL, but these 3 all at once should leave us with a bit of a window to take advantage.

Should be an interesting few years to come which i am for once in along time looking forward to with genuine hope rather than trepidation.

Re, Brough, many people thought that Sarginson would struggle at this level but he's adapted very well to it and had a decent solid tournament.

ATEOTD Brough has not been given a fair crack of the whip and in guess the way he has reacted to not be selected has put a few peoples noses out of joint.

But if you were the reigning man of steel who had just had an absolute stormer of a season and you don't even make the squad I reckon you'd be a touch pished off too.

I don't think England would have faired any better or worse had Brough been selected. Great season last year, average season this time. A bit like our centre & 2nd row predicament there are plenty of very good options, but hardly any stand out world class ones

Brough would've spat his dummy out and sulked had he been on the end of all those late hits on the kicker.

Sarginson was just a bit inexperienced, that's why people like me (wrongly) thought he wasn't ready.

Danny Brough has gone hiding in too many big games for me. If MoS wasn't chosen before he s**t out in the play-offs, that honour would be missing from his CV. IMO, obviously.

He has the ability, but not the attitude.

Roby was a big miss, Clarke impressed me Saturday, but we lost all attacking shape when he went off, and that was not the fault of Ferris ( who should have been in the team from the start on merit anyway).
Not sure why Watkins has gotten so much stick. He wa getting the ball late or not at all, the kiwis came in and cut off all good ball to our right as we had no depth when attacking that way. Also, all England's quick ball went left, we missed some glaring mis-matches on the right. And but for a foot just in touch he nearly created something magical at the end.

What we really have a problem with is that we don't know how to win. It's gone, you can almost see it in the players. There is no belief.
You can moan about minor team selection but I don't think we could have put much better from what was avaable on the field. They all worked themselves into the ground and I'm proud if the effort they hav shown the whole tournament. But they don't know how to win a game and when it comes to tight matches they don 't have the belief.

I don't know how you fix that.