It's all speculation and we can't know for sure, but I'm not so sure it was tactical, or fitness. My theory is that for the first 60 minutes we kept the game tight, it was largely a forward battle, as Test matches often are, and we handled that well. In the last 20 minutes the game started to stretch a bit, as Test matches often do. That put the ball in the hands of the backs, with room to operate. at that point the difference in class between the resperctive back lines and halves came to the fore. The rest, as you say, is history.

Obviously only a theory, like anyone else's, but it's my take on it, for what it's worth.

I'm not saying your theory is wrong. But most peoples opinion on Saturday was that when we brough Roby on things changed for us. Sinfield went away from controlling the game, and the performance diminished. That is a tactic that went spectacularly wrong.

Also I dont thin it was just a coincidence that everything went wrong defensively once Shenton went off, with most breaks coming down that position there after.

Whilst I accept that Australia has a far bigger and better pool of resources to choose from. I still think we were only a couple of positions light on Saturday along with the IMO poor tactical change with the controller/s on the pitch.

I agree. We aren't as far as off as some people would like us to think. Like you say at the moment the centres are our big problem. We have little threat out wide other than from a kick. Australia's great strength lies in its depth of players. If Inglis, Hodges etc dont perform theres another 2 or 3 ready to take their place without much drop in quality. We on the other hand are debating whether to play a 33 year old who's retired from internationals.
I do worry for England/GB though when Peacock and Morley retire.

when you are inferior to a team, in any sport, you can go a long way by being highly organised,highly disciplined and hard to beat.
look at greece in the european championships.

i didn't expect england to win the world cup, but i expected to compete. i didn't expect to look a shambles but we looked like a pub team

But we didn't look like a pub team. We held the best team in the world for 60 minutes, with a bit more luck and some more favourable reffing we'd have been 12-14 points ahead.
The score blew out at the end partly because we tried 3 or 4 short kick offs which didnt work. We could have been boring and settled for a 12 point loss and kicked the ball long. Australia wouldn't have scored all those tries near the end, the score would have stayed respectable and the story wouldnt be "England destroyed by Australia" but would be "England brave effort falls just short". But we tried to get back into the game.
As Gotcha said, we lack in areas no doubt but we aren't miles behind the Aussies and the NRL. If we were we wouldn't have won the 2nd half of the Aussie game 16-0, we wouldn't have beaten the Kiwis, and we wouldn't have been close for the majority of the game in the final.

But you have to look at the complete tenure of Tony Smith to judge if he was successful as the England coach. The way we performed in the world cup, and the first halves of both the French and the Kiwi match, yes we did look like a pub team. Granted we played well in the scond halves and the last two matches BUT consider all the matches that he held the coaching position.

I think tad might have been referring to the World Cup rather than the 4 Nations.

i was mate yes.
there were signs of improvement in the 4 nations although there was some off the wall selections and to much chopping and changing

I think you are really using rose-tinted glasses here. You are using the scoreline to at a point in time to suggest that the game was close - just as you did for the WCC against Manley. The difference was the Aussies were doing what was required to keep in the game whilst we were full out - as soon as the Aussies upped their game we disintigrated - the scoreline seldom lies and the quality of the plays from the Aussies showed the gap in ability.

We could have kept Sinfield where he was and the scoreline would have been the same - we never had the ball once Slater had scored.

We are short of whole backline - a hooker of really quality, two props that is how close we are.

Ah, sorry tad!

no worries bud

I'd agree, and I think thats a failing of Smith in that when he was at Leeds we looked as disorganised but we had the right players to pull that off.
Obviously we cant do that at International level.
Im more annoyed at Smith for resigning than I am at the mistakes he's made.

Were they? So they were deliberately playing below their potential for 65 minutes of the game?


I thought the Aussies kept doing exactly the same as they'd done all game. I saw it more as we let in a soft try to take it to a 12 point lead and then had some bad luck with Shentons injury, and lost our focus a bit. They scored again while we were unfocused and then we tried to get back into the game with short kick offs. None of which worked. If we hadnt done those short kick offs the score would have been different.


True, it seldom lies. This time it did.


Some tries were great, some were more just good vision and athleticism. Especially those near the end when we'd collapsed and they were on a roll.


We have a good pack. That much is obvious or we'd have been murdered in every game against both the Aussies and the Kiwis. I agree we're lacking a hooker and are also obviously lacking in the centres. But they aren't as far ahead as you seem to take great delight in announcing. If they were we wouldn't have beaten the Kiwi's and would have had 60 or 70 put on us.
The biggest difference for me is their confidence. Both mentally and their confidence with the ball. They look far more comfortable passing quickly and when they do pass it is invariably quicker and more accurate than ours.

Nail on the head and nobody has been more vociferous in his criticism of Smith than David in the past so this post speaks volumes to me.

If Smith were to blame David wouldn't have hesitated to say so.

I thought the team played with a great deal of pride and played as a team - Smith must take some credit for that - the second half in game one was very encouraging - he was also prepared to make the tough decisions - correctly dropping McGuire and Smith.

All in all Smith can be proud of what his team achieved IMO - there is simply not substitute for real ability - when the Aussies needed to they had another 3/4 gears - simply the finest rugby side in the world bar none in either code.