I'll just never understand Mcbananas decisions.
Poor squad balance was the first big mess up.
Not having Percival or shenton in there along with Cuthbertson was poor, as was not fixing anything wrong with the first performance regarding getting ball to our backs in good position.

The kicking game has been poor, the Plan A is dull and predictable and there was no plan B. If all you want from wingers is extra yards why not throw McGilvary on for Burgess. So many odd choices from ole Stevie blunder

The problem for the second test was probably down to believing that the first test could be repeated. In actual fact if you look at England's tries from that test all bar Hardaker's knee, NZ would have been disappointed to have let them in.

England seemingly didn't see that and assumed that they would simply repeat the tries up the middle. In fact that made them even more conservative, which meant they were easy meat for an improved NZ defence.

England need to rethink their approach and understand that if you move the ball around gaps will appear up the middle. Those gaps will disappear if you try to run at them all day.

It does seem ludicrous that we have attacked primarily down the left where we have a make shift centre, whilst our strike threat stands around freezing his nads off.Surely he has to pick Shenton or Cudjoe this week.

Most right handed players find it easier to pass quickly and accurately to their left, so in theory it's easier to attack down that side than it is down the right.

I understand that, but we are talking international standard here.Our halfs should be capable of going to the right if that is what it takes to get our best players into the game.

This is true, but I'm pretty sure both our HBs are left handed/left footed. Widdop definitely is.

I've watched the game again (I was there on Saturday) Watkins had 11 carries for 53 metres, Batman had 14 carries for 100 metres) Bateman carried the ball further than any English back.
In his games for Leeds Watkins normally has 14 - 15 carries, so it's not a BIG difference. he also had to make 20 tackles on Saturday, he normally averages 15. I would suggest that the major problem on Saturday was a completion rate of 64% by England as against 80% by New Zealand. That would probably explain Watkins having less ball than normal.

How many of those carries were from him coming inside? and i certainly recall him getting a couple of hospital passes as first receiver from scrums.Whatever, he has still been starved of ball from an attacking stand point and the coaches should be working out this week on how best to get him in the game.

Ill discipline and poor ball retenion (Bateman being the worst culprit) were major factors. Agree we went down the middle too much.

People say we should get the ball more to Watkins. We have been saying it about Leeds. However that's not quite the case. As the stats above show hus stats aren't much different to his averages, but the situations are different. When you have an xfactor player you need to get the ball to them in positions which maximise their advantages. Life Wigan hitting tomkins out the back on the overlap etc. No point wearing watkins out ckearing his own half. Let bateman do that. But work your at around getting the ball to Watkins in their half with a bit of room. Do That just 3 or 4 times and something is much more likely to happen

1. Batman didn't play on Saturday, he was injured when Bane tackled him
2. Translation - "Stop picking on a player from Wigan"

Back injury I heard. Should be back in action after a short training montage.

Good news - McNamara has included an extra HB in this weeks 19 man squad.

Bad news - it's Matty Smith, not Luke Gale.

McGillivery also in the 19 with Westwood and Cudjoe (so Bateman will stay at centre) dropping out.

As poor as Williams was in game 2, I would rather play him with his arms tied behind his back, his feet in shackles & blindfolded than play Smith.

3 wingers? WTF? Must be thinking of playing Burgess at centre. Now, the question is which Burgess?