There would be no need to make excuses to why they hadn't played to their potential had they actually played to their potential, so I think we both know none played how we know they can

Agreed.
England were short defenders on the right for much of the game, Watkins spent a lot of the game defending one in from touch, only later in the second half did Smith consistently move out that wide between him and he winger. I lost count of the number of times we had 2-3 defenders only between the post and the touchline on the right, at one point in the first half Watkins was 2-3 yards from the line of the post and he was our widest defender, McGillvery was diretly behind him - and this was inside our 20. Not sure which back row was supposed to be defending right side but they were non existant for much of the match. The way the centre and winger scrambled was tremendous. I got the impression that most of the forwards we used in the back row are much more comfortable defending in the middle here they have to move less and make fewer decisions.
I'm suprised NZ didn't exploit it more, on a better weather day with their first choice halves they could have done some major damage.

But once again we are debating, at length, with trolls from Wigan this time (why reply to these bell ends who are obviously trying to paper over the mental scars left by a potless season and a Leeds treble) who exactly was to blame for tries conceded in a game where "our" team won. It's simply not good enough that England win the test and the series, it has to be because of one teams players and despite the underperforming, over hyped players from another. Fact is everyone played pretty well and did some good things, and most people made mistakes but it was enough to post a good win over NZ and win a series for the first time in 8 years.

Maybe we should all go over to the Wigan site & pillory their super captain & MoS(eries) for stupidly giving away yet another needless penalty in front of our posts almost immediately after he'd scored thereby nullifying his effort.
Not the first stupid penalty he'd given away either.

From memory Whitehead (who's a pretty ordinary defender at the best of times, the NRL is going to expose his deficiencies cruelly unless he sorts it out), then Ferres, then back to Whitehead again.

For feck's sake, we have just won a test series for the first time in years! Let's enjoy the feeling and also remember that despite missing top quality players like Johnson, the NZ team had more caps between them than the England side.

Sure, we are not perfect and it is a work in progress but we are improving and two to three years ago, would have lost this series.

2 years ago we were seconds away from beating a far better NZ side in the WC semi final which had SBW,Johnson,JWH,Foran etc... i have no doubt that England team would have beaten this lot too and probably done it more handily.That said, you are right in that we need to celebrate the victory as they are very rare, however forgive me if i don't get too carried away yet, next years 4 nations will be a far bigger pointer to where we stand now on the world stage.