Quote: AJC "Funny how the people claiming Australia could put together 3 teams capable of beating England are the same people claiming the only reason England came close was because the Australians were poor! The real reason we lost that game was a shocking decision. End of. We matched both Oz & NZ play for play, in their back yard. To claim that isn't progress is ridiculous. I'm no huge McNamara fan, nor agree with some of his selections - and that's not just a club bias - but he's doing a good job given his hands are tied by such an inept international program.'"
That is nowhere close to "end of"!
Admittedly we could have won on that decision, but to state that is the only reason we did not win is ridiculous.
England had that game in the bag as they went off at half time, they even started the second half as though they would walk it eventually, THEN what.?
They stopped doing what they were excelling with and went defensive, with a lets hold them out attitude.
For the ensuing 30, or so, minutes of that second half, they let the Aussies run the game and only tried to retrieve a match, we should have had won by then comfortably, in the final 3, or so, minutes of the game.
Sorry but that is the real reason ENGLAND failed yet again. The ref argument is really a very secondary reason why we did not play in this weekends final.
We should have and it was our own fault that we are not.