Yup. If he'd have gone deep looking for touch, he may have been concerned about hitting it out on full.

Or go short and drill it, like Gotcha said, wouldn't have made much ground.

Shame he hit long straight into Kiwi arms.

To extend the "game of inches" theory, if Ben Westwood doesn't have his arm hit as he's reaching out to ground the ball, the last two minutes of the game would have been about the Kiwis searching for an irrelevant consolation score.

...or if Ryan Hall had just had half an inch more of his hands on the ball for that intercept he'd have scored at the other end.

Despite the result it was a great performance and one that many said we'd got no chance of putting in at the start of the tournament.

Or if Westwood hadn't gone for glory - a try was by no means certain - we still had tackles remainjng on their line......

As you say, ifs and buts.

A great team effort, and a tournament which has ten fold reignited my interest in International fixtures. I'm sure by Saturday I'll be motivated for the final!

I would hope it has put an end to the repeated bleating about England being "light years behind" the likes of Australia and New Zealand. Mind, repeated Tri/Four Nations wins over the Kiwis haven't done that, so I don't see why it should start now.

I thought the same. At one point it looked like he would consolidate and take the tackle. He seemed to go for that late surge.... cock-hair off.

Where's Mr Eve been while all this has been going on?

watching clouds

Mr Eve is looking forward to the final this coming Saturday, now that it will be contested by the best 2 teams in the world.

His words, not mine

The problem was Roby passed to Sinfield who was on the very narrow side. He's too tight to aim properly down that side, if Roby goes the other way both Tomkins and Widdop have the other corner to much easier aim at.

If Tomkins hadn't dropped the ball on the first tackle on 29 minutes. The Kiwis scored just after.

You should put that on the Wigan board or are you still banned?