Could Ablett off the bench have offered something?

England were the better team so to come up short after a titanic effort will be a bitter pill to swallow.

The big talking points at the crunch was Georges high swinger and Sinfield missing his one on one. All fair points in isolation...but thats probably been discussed to death.

I'd like to discuss the belief. After that penalty NZ had around 50 metres to go and a full set to score to win. You just knew what was going to happen. England knew what was going to happen. It wasnt shock or surprise etched on their faces it was grave disappointment.

It was one set to defend. The ultimate black ball game. They could have killed the clock....thrown a cheap penalty away (ball steal...lying on) there was none of that. They let NZ play the set and it cost them. That is what killed us.

THere were less than 20m to go in that last set after the penalty. We were hanging on, and just came up short. I think that Sinfield was offside when he set off, and had he have made the tackle there would probably only have been time for one drive or a kick. As it was he missed, and the cover wasn't there. There was an overlap, and I guess he felt it neccessary to shut down the space. No one went with him, and the gap was there.

Personally, the thing I didn't understand was not kiking the ball dead on the last set of possession we had. If a scrum would have had to be formed, there would have been a a few more seconds taken off the clock as the forwards got back for the scrum, and given us a vital breather. All ifs and buts

I understood this decision perfectly. The New Zealand defence covered the touchline well, and had it been drilled to touch, it couldn't have gone further than 5 yards. Yes it would have wasted time for the scrum, which would have been on the New Zeland 40, but really how long do you think it would have taken to form that scrum? 10 seconds maximum and the clock would be stopped. There were still 2 and a half minutes left of the game.

He chose to kick longer instead, and unluckily found the New Zealand winger straight away, but he still only got to the 20 metre line. So they started further back with the set, but still managed to get to the other end of the field.

Agreed. It was not a disaster kick, and certainly from where on the pitch Sinfield was it made sense, it would just have been nice to get the ball out or bouncing. Not to be unfortunately

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.