Just watched the England vs. NZ game at Olympic Stadium. Frustrating performce but most disappointing two players for me were Gareth Widdopp and Elliott Whitehead. They werent the only poor ones but I was disappointed with them.

Widdop's kicking was poor. Williams' wasn't great but given his experience Widdop should be doing more. Very little spark in attack and he neds to be more vocal and show more leadership skills. If I was McNamara i'd play Matty Smith and Williams in the halves next week. Drop Widdop. Matty Smith and George Williams will have the experience of playing together at club level and will both be on familiar territory at home in Wigan.

Elliott Whitehead was also incredibly disappointing. He looks exhausted and flat footed whenever he plays at international level. He was similarly poor in the game he played for England in 4 Nations last year. We all have a good impression of Whitehead but im starting to wonder whether it's just because most of us watch him when Catalan home games are on TV. Catlan always play well at home but i get the impression Whitehead is poor for most Catalan away games but perhaps we dont see this as much with less TV coverage. I think Whitehead will struggle in NRL next season.

Anyway, at least they both are willing to pull the shirt on for their country and give up their off season for the internationals, unlike some St Helens players who would seemingly rather be on holiday.

Bit of a wake up call for some on here who thought Widdop would have been an excellent signing.

He's been carried through his NRL career by those around him, very ordinary player. Can't command a team or grab the game by the scruff of the neck in the same way that such as Sinfield did.

Williams was equally as bad and showed he is not international class at the moment. Agree about widdop, he must be the only NRL based half back who can't kick.

Williams was considerably worse than Widdop. I know OP is a Wigan fan and that Widdop was poor as well, but come on, the young lad fell apart in the second half. I think Williams will be a top player but he has no kicking game whatsoever even at the best of times.

Williams was worse. At least he has the mitigation of being young and inexperienced at this level. Neither of them can kick and neither of them seem capable of passing to their right.
Still, when your forwards seem to offer not even the slightest hint they might offload or pass all you get us a slow PTB and a fully set snd advancing defensive line.
It was like watching a pack from 1982. Biff, barge, up the middle, repeat until the game ends. We don't need any actual backs in that side, they are totally redundant with that game plan.

Tackled well though. NZ only got over once and that looked very dubious to me.

Most boring game of rugby I've seen for ages.
Made union look good today.

What was wrong with Widdop? He battled hard on his own as the only half back. His fellow half back Williams was massively out of his depth and should have been off at half time, simply horrendous. A good player in there, but must be dropped for next week.

I agree on Whithead and thought he was pants last week. Got to get Westwood in for him.

I don't think any England player had a better than average game, to be fair, but Widdop was the worst of the lot, IMO. He's managed to get to where he is because he's been carried by some of the legends of the game, at all levels. He looked good along side Cronk and Smith at Melbourne, and he's previously been carried by the likes of Tomkins and Sinfield for England, and now that he's being asked to be the main play maker for St George, and England his average skill set is being exposed. If he wasn't in the NRL I doubt anyone would give him the time of day.
Williams is in his first season, and will sometimes put in performances like he did today, and that's the gamble you take with picking young players. He'll need to widen his skill set though, he has a good kicking game close to the line, and has a good step, and offload, but the other areas of his game need some serious work.
We're desperate for a half who can actually pass a ball, though. McGuire, and Brown are the only ones knocking around SL with world class passing games, but they're both in their 30s now. Tomkins also has this ability and has been badly missed.

I don't watch much nrl so all I really know about widdop is what gets reported. Have to say I've been very unimpressed. I'm pretty sure mags could be doing a better job. Are the two test appearances by widdop really representative of his nrl form over the last 2/3 years?

Williams, Widdop and Bateman were the selection reasons we lost today.

No creativity in the Halves, poor link play, poor kicking game and poor decision making.

Widdops kicking game is terrible but he is decent in defense.

Williams is poor in Attack and Defense (Not ready for Internationals)

Bateman is a Second Rower being asked to play in the Centre where he has no skill. He had multiple opportunities to pass early to Hall and either didn't take it or passed too late. We have Centre Options available, use them!

The Main issue is McBanana. He hasn't a Scooby Doo. This is his Coaching Board.

Whitehead I felt went ok. I would keep the sane team next week as the whole point of this series for me is gelling combinations towards the World Cup.

3 players I think need to improve though are Williams, Widdop and Hardaker.

Williams was poor but maybe you can excuse that as he is still finding his feet at this level. Comfortably the worst player on the field in a key position.

Widdop should be taking control of games. He us a top class half but has not shown it yet for England in this series.

Hardaker needs to put himself in the line as an attacking option, he was anonymous again today offering no options.

Big plusses for me is Mike Cooper who has come on so much from spending time in the NRL.

Watkins, huge talent but always felt he needed to work harder off the ball at thus level, and he was great in that respect today.

Bateman, being played out of position strong carry and showed enthusiasm and desire through out, even when others around him seemed to drop off the pace for spells.

A poor attacking game from both sides with England totally lacking any ambition which was a poor advert for the game in the Capital. Perhaps this was a negative game plan from the coach but we will need changes for next week as NZ took a step forward while we took several steps back. Had Graham scored the try it would have been a hollow victory.

Williams was way out of his depth providing no link with our potential match winners and Widdop was not a lot better. It is a poor state of affairs when a forward is chosen to start an International at centre and his handling limitations and decision making were exposed. Our defence was good but our kicking game and attack were terrible. Hardaker never entered the line at pace and he made no impression with his kick returns and was usually driven back like a rag doll. Roby looked under par too with little spark.

I would play Westwood next week and perhaps Smith may be a better bet than Williams but we really need a creative player like McGuire. There were times when their big forwards looked tired trudging back out of position and we should have given the ball some air to try and exploit this.

Yes but some of us took into account SL isn't anywhere near the same level as Internationals. Not being able to rip the Kiwis apart doesn't mean he couldn't perform well against SL opposition.

Disagree about Hardaker and Bateman. I think you've got them mixed up.

Halves to Forwards. Forwards to Forwards. Use the Wings as Forwards. Use the Centres as Forwards. No room to have an excellent attacking Fullback to sweep into the backline is there?

The problem is McBanana!

What's frustrating is that in the last two years we've tried being more adventurous in games but have taken a big backwards step is series.

It's like McNamara knows he has to deliver a series win this time and he's gone for the old grind out a win at all costs style but it backfired today. We saw first hand when our makeshift side play NZ that they didn't like it when we play attacking adventurous rugby and England have done the total opposite.

Whilst people talk about how good our forwards options are (particularly with Sam Burgess coming back) I'm underwhelmed by our 2nd row options. Lots of very good SL 2nd rowers but not really any International ones.