We showed today we can beat them. Carry on. More of the same. Have some more balls whien it comes to the games administration. Stop getting pushed around by the Aussie administrators. The players did their bit.

The most frustrating thing about today was that we had done enough to give the Aussie confidence a huge dent. That same sense of belief over the past 20 years that has always given them the edge in games that matter. It could have vanished today.

We did enough to kick them out Of a major comp in their own back yard, played to their rules with their own ref.

Tomorrows papers will show a win though. They get to keep their sense of belief.


Such a shame for the future of international RL.

Totally disagree, need to increase player pool in UK and get rid of Aussie journey men from our game, this has been a problem for over 20 years. We need more london accents in our team as well, like sarginson and Los wasn't far off being selected either. people say london has been a failure but the talent and player pool is massive down there, need to bring them through.
Ryan hall never played in NRL but proved against yesterday why is rightly called the WBW we simply need more players playing at the top level.

Cheat

Publically state we will never play an International match without a neutral ref ever again, and if that means the Australians ' exempt ' themselves from that part of the sport, then so be it

I didn't make it clear in my post, but I was actually thinking about the medium to long term rather than the team for the next game...apologies for that

Which other International Sport doesnt now have neutral refs?

We weren't a million miles away today. We need keep the intensity up for the full 80 minutes and improve our attacking kicking game. Did we get any repeat sets all game?

Considering every time we kicked, the kicker got put on the floor after kicking, improving that might be a problem, but not once penalised ,make of that what you will?

I think if all our best players were in the NRL we'd win. Since NZ have had their players in they have come on. Ditto Samoa. Australia are suffering because the NRL attracts quality players and sadly for Australia most of the best are not Aussies.

I'm not sure I buy the "get as many players in the NRL as possible" mantra. Tom Burgess and Mike Cooper are in the squad ahead of the likes of Craig Huby and Kyle Amor but neither are as good IMO. Sam Tomkins is no better than he was in SL, and Gareth Widdop is nothing special, and I think if he was an SL player then everyone would just be saying how average he is.

The key for England is to increase their talent pool, whether that be here or in the NRL we need more players of world class standard to pick from. We're making improvements but we're just missing 2 or 3 more players of the required quality needed to win a tournament.

I agree that we don't need huge chunks of players playing in the NRL. I think just a few going over there and excelling like Graham and Sam Burgess and even Cooper holding his own is enough to make the SL based players realise that the Aussie aren't unbeatable superhumans that we can't hang with. Too often around the 90's/00's I thought the England/GB side were mentally in awe of the Aussie team. I think last year and now (whilst we haven't got the job done) we aren't in awe of them.....we're just some pieces and the fact it's been so long away from getting a win. To be missing both Roby and McIlorum as a starter over Hodgson is looking costly. Either of them with Clark coming off the bench would be a significant plus.

Graham apart our best players were not those who play in the NRL - Chris was significantly better than Tom Burgess who should not be anywhere near that side. Widdop offered very little in the game and neither did Tomkins. Hall, Sargison and Hill were our best players non of whom play in the NRL.