Don't forget the top Aussies play 3 SOO games and the Anzac tests - do our players really play 10 games a year more than the Aussies?

Sky have certain favourites who are beyond criticism - Tomkins is one and Briscoe is another O'Loughlin is another. Briscoe just wasn't at the races his awareness was none existent - harsh to say it but I am not sure he had the heart for it last night. The fact Simon Mannering was able to give him 10 metres start and easily catch him suggests he needs to work on his basic speed.

Think I refered to this on another thread, in fairness to Sky it's not just them building up Tomkins. However I have never understood the hype reguarding Briscoe, especially when I get to see Ryan Hall play week in week out. Don't get me wrong Briscoe is a good winger, but you'd think he's Martin Offiah the way certain members of the Sky team talk about him.

Admittedly I don't see him play week in week out....but I must agree I have not seen anything that impresses. He apparently has not got scintillating exceptional pace nor has he got Hall-like finishing qualities....BJB also got the better of him in a tight situation with a fabulous finish earlier in the season.

Saints fan in 'Tomkins is rubbish - let's bring in Gaskill and Lomax' shocker!

England totally bottled it.They should have been 4 tries down at half time and we'd be looking at a similiar/worse final scoreline to 2004.

I say bottled because they were making basic errors throughout the game. As soon as they got within 30 metres of the aussie try line it was complete panic stations with headless chicken running, bizzare wild passes and no set plays.

It's a step back from the final of 2009 where they actually should have been 12-0 up inside 20 minutes and gave it a real good crack, with a younger team.

Australia battered england in the forwards.

We'll topple them one day I just don't know when.

It was evident from the very start that Sinfields kicking game was going to be neutralized, I dont think I've seen an attacking kicker been targeted so much. That along with been torn apart in the ruck just destroyed England early on. It made England lose all game plan and reverted back to the England of old with churning out sets using the forwards instead of being the 2011 expansive England. For me the game was lost in the first 20, they had a massive grip and were not gonna let go.

I think when Cronk came on just before the hour mark there was a well conceived plan to start spreading the ball. It was a lovely simple plan and it pains me to say a joy to watch...I am only relieved that Billy Slater was not out there to cause havoc in those last 20 minutes.

The Aussies, in time honoured fashion, won the game in the first 60 and scored the points in the last 20. England had very little left in the tank by the final quarter. Villifying certain players is all very well, but I think that was reasonably close to the best team available, and in cases where I could have found a place for a different player, it'd be lunacy to believe they would have seriously changed the way the game went.

I actually think we are improving. This year's tournament has seen us carry more threat in shirts 1-5 than I've seen from GB/England in a while. I think we need a couple of players, specifically a really good half back and another centre. We have places they might come from as some youngsters develop.

The positions we were really seriously out-classed in were 6 and 7. That's not a criticism of Sinfield and Chase, but you look at the quality of Lockyer and Thurston and we just can't compete with that. They're probably the best half back combination I've seen having watched RL for the past 22 years. The glimmer of consolation is that while the Aussies will inevitably find another top quality 6, he is very unlikely to be in the same class as Lockyer. He'll probably still be better than what wer have available though.

I'm not so sure about that. Don't get me wrong they were outclassed in the half backs but the main area was the forwards imo. England were meant to be the strongest in the forwards but lost the collision and the ruck big time. Cameron Smith was living the dream with the amount of space he had out of dummy half. Sam Thaiday was uncontrollable and put our forwards on their backsides on numerous occasions. The positive from Englands pov is that Burgess was injured and he will be a major addition next year.
Its time for JP and Mozza to retire from international RL imo. Peacock offered very little in this series and needs to focus on club rugby to prolong his career. Graham was by far the pack leader and will only get better in the NRL.

Careful, promoting such views on here is akin to heresy.

I look forward to Peacock playing statues as Paul Gallen jinks past his creaking frame in 2013.

Sinfield was an easy target for a committed defence purely because he's not mobile enough to sidestep a tackler flying out of the line, then to accelerate into the resulting space. I was surprised this wasn't done to greater effect in the first game. Then I decided they'd been much cleverer by not doing so until it was too late for us to come up with a plan B. As another poster pointed out, our pack was better in the first game but I think that's only half the story.

The Australians always neutralise our long kicking game by sitting the full back and usually a winger very, very deep on the last tackle, so long kicks often reach them on the full, and in any event they don't have to go back and then turn round before starting their kick return. They've been doing it for years. A few high risk plays with a short chip over the top into the space they've left might be worth a try, although obviously if it goes wrong you turn the ball over further up the field. I'm surprised we haven't at least tried it more often over the past few years. If nothing else, it might lure the full back a little higher up the pitch and create some space behind them to kick into.

Yep, we end up kicking down the throats of the Aussie back three who then run the ball back and the Aussies finish their set on our 40m line or thereabouts allowing them to put in an attacking kick. Mixing up our kicks with a few chips is a worthwhile gamble given we'd end up under pressure anyway.

Whatever kick we put in though its quality depends on how much time the kicker has. Playing behind our pack with our slow PTBs means the Aussie defensive line is in the kickers face and that causes poorer kicks.

A better kicking game would come if we could dominate in the forwards. Something we've struggled to do versus Australia.

Agreed. I was watching one of Leeds recent GF wins again the other day, when we kicked particularly well, you could see that all the best kicks came from a half break or a quick PTB with a retreating defence, while Leeds made Sean Long kick badly by being right in his face last tackle.
I also think that at international level you need at least 3 quality kicking options, ideally one of those from dummy half and one with a decent left foot so you can add uncertainty to the defence.