Despite a couple of brain farts I thought Chase looked a threat when he ran the ball. I also thought that we'd have been a lot closer had we not suffered three injuries to our best forwards.

Agree re Wilkin and JJB. Unfortunately McNamara didn't think we were too lightweight on the bench and we paid for that. Hopefully we'll have more size for the NZ game.

At least he played all of the bench, that's a novelty for Macnamara.

But we weren't too lightweight on the bench unless you could anticipate that all of Ellis, Graham and Peacock would be injured.

Chase often looked good against the best team in the world. Too many times our scrum half has gone walkabout against the Aussies, not Chase. Credit to McNamara for picking him.

We heard on the VT how crap Tomkins would be and how the Aussies would smash him etc., but he looked every inch the part, and came up with some quite outstanding plays. Credit to McNamara for playing bhim at FB, and the game plan that let him chime into the line to some devastating effect. (Also for the Reed/Hall combination which was superb).


Indeed, and credit to the team selection and tactics for that fact. Even Inglis was (again) not allowed to do much.


It did. Not sure how Mac "let" him do it - what do you suggest, he should have taken a contract out on him?

I think perhaps the reference was more to the terribly weak soft c0ck defence of the McNamara-coached England team allowing Inglis to stroll through unopposed...

that Inglis try was a combination of a cracking run and an amazing pass from Thurston. Reed had a man to mark and he would have been ok if Hall had come inside to take Inglis. That said, it would have been 2 on 1 and I would put my house on Australia scoring from that, especially with Inglis providing.

Probably poor communication between and winger at worst but I don't think anything should be taken away from how easy Australia make plays like that look. A top try scored in a pressure situation.

Chase had a good game?

Must have been watching a different game to me. He hasn't done a great deal in either game for me, let's hope he finds his SL form soon.

Whether it was a planned move or off-the-cuff it was a quality sequence of play, and the previous pass from Cronk started it off, a player ran a good decoy and Thurston passed from right behind him (that was what the "obstruction" inquiry was about), the result was that the Aussies had a man over. The centre saw the danger and took the option of coming out of the line to try to intercept Thurston's pass, presumably on the basis that if the pass wasn't intercepted then a try was certain anyway, Thurston was good enough to see him move out and threw the ball over and behind him, where Inglis, making the extra man, caught it and ran in unopposed.

If Hall had come inside to take Inglis, that would have left the winger unopposed, so I can't blame Hall at all.

It was a top class move by the Aussies and credit where it is due.

To me, instead of giving credit for top class rugby league, to say that was nothing more than a case of McNamara's soft-c0ck defence just makes the poster look pretty stupid.

I'm more with FA on this - you can't underestimate how well Australia execute close to the line. They have two great halfbacks and a team full of quality attacking players. It should surprise nobody that every now and then they score a try that looks easy but is in reality almost impossible to defend against (see also Origin over the last few years).

The key for England is to get experience from facing this kind of attack, and NOT to stand back and watch. I'm not suggesting everybody charge out at full speed, but you cannot allow Australia the space they have been getting. Moving up purposefully in a line and making Lockyer/Thurston make quick decisions is the only hope (along with preventing them get the field position in the first place).

I'm used to seeing McNamara coached defensive lines with players all moving up at different speeds in SL so it's good to see it's the same at test level.

You know, it's strange. Last season over 7,500 points were scored in the NRL. So, for the sake of argument, there were probably somewhere in the order of a thousand tries.

Given how stoically and impeccably NRL-drilled players defend, repelling all-comers, how can this be? I think we should be told.