I'm sorry but I think there was 23,000 people there today who would have "tried hard" if they were on the pitch. Trying hard but being completely useless isn't acceptable at this level.

Briscoe did nothing wrong in defence, and didnt get a chance in attack.

Care to explain why so low? He was one of the best out there for us tonight.

Fair enough maybe a little harsh on Briscoe, but I think its fair to say that this has come a year too soon for him, needs a full year of Super League behind him where he scores 15-20 tries and has some confidence imo. Fox must be wondering what he has to do to get a go.

Justification?
Crabtree was one of, if not the best England player on the pitch. McGuire was by far and away the worst.

Be better than Tom Briscoe ?

Front row didnt do a lot today. Probably the best of a bad bunch. Burgess and Tomkins are the only ones who stood out today for me. Thought Lee Smith was shocking.

briscoe did absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever, made yards and looked harder to tackle than pretty much anyone else on the couple of occasions he touched the ball. taking him off at half time was a f****** disgusting decision. scapegoating a 19 year old winger who was left defending half the width of the pitch against 3 or 4 of the top players in the world is bang out of order, and thats exactly what tony smith did today!

smith made that decision with the sole intention of taking the heat of his leeds darlings inside briscoe who were nowhere to be found whenever more than 1 pass went in their direction.


ratings wise... its not worth bothering for anyone other than burgess and ellis. everyone else was completely and utterly out of their depth and wouldn't even get a score. the second half is irrelevet to me, australia completely stopped. infact i reckon they were deliberately sliding into touch and not finding touch with pens to get some defensive practice.

Look love it or Hate it Rugby League in this country is a third teir game whilst in Oz it just about there national sport. here is a fact for a in team of 17 there was over a quater of the team was born in and around Cas a very small town in Yorkshire so that telling you how small our game is.

If I'm judging each players performance set against their relative roles and resposibilities then I'd go with this.

S Briscoe - 5 Looked slow in the 1st half and did'nt lay any kind of foundation for a good set by returning the ball with interest. 2nd half was much more involved going forward and was'nt asked too many questions in defence.

T Briscoe - 5 Was left exposed by poor defensive decision making on his inside, did well when bringing the ball away without ever looking like breaking through. Unfortunate to get hauled off by T Smith who can't see past his nose.

L Smith - 3 Absolutely awefull display of defence and petulance. Out of position on a number of occasions and at fault for three tries in the first 20 mins. Lucky to stay on after half time and still managed to get out of position defensively almost allowing Inglis another gifted free run to the line. on a par with Karl Pratt and Paul Sykes in terms of incompetance.

M Shenton - 6 Starved of the ball again and could have slipped to another anonymous performance had he not shown up well in defence. Had one tilt at the Ausie line and went for it with confidence getting tackled 5 yards short.

R Hall - 5 Was asked too do very little with the ball in hand but he ran hard without making any busts but neither did he make any mistakes. Tackled well and was in Haynes face throughout.

D McGuire - 4 Poor! Only marginaly better than Smith, terrible in defence and jumped out of the line on a few occasions poor decision to go for an intercept. A non entity in attack. pushed passes, poor execution, playing team mates into trouble etc

S Tomkins - 7 Did he play for the first half hour? to Australias frustration he was deceptively solid in defence even though they kept testing him out. Came alive in the second half and worried the Ausies with a mix of good link play, short kicking game and taking on the line.

A Morley - 5 Solid in defence but never really imposed himself. Took the ball up hard, regular and strong but did'nt worry the Ausies in either defence or attack. Would like to see more of the enforcer from Moz.

J Roby - 6 Busy display which was blunted by too many consecutive minutes on the field. Where is the Roby of 3 years ago that looked strong, broke tackles and refused to die with the ball? Defended well but needs to be more explosive frm dummy half as he used to be.

J Graham - 7 Consistant and solid, play a game of attrition and his work took its toll on Australia as the game wore on. Would like to see him punching through the line a little more instead of looking for the ground and a quick PTB.

J Peacock - 5 Worked hard and kept going but this was his most least effective international performance for many years. Maybe it's because he was in the 2nd row but despite not doing anything wrong he also failed to have any impact on the game.

G Ellis - 8 Looked solid from the first to last minute, he threatened to bust the line on a number of occasions and was impeneratrable in defence.

K Sinfield - 4 I'm not disappointed in his poor showing because I knew he was'nt up to the job! He has been tasked, by T Smith, with the role of tactical kicker and organiser and in those two depertments he was terrible. His poor kicking game made it easy for Australias back three to return the ball and set up attacking sets for the Ausies. He pushed passes that wer'nt on, played his runners into waiting defenders and failed to offer anything with ball in hand. 2nd half was better but he was lucky that we had no one else to replace him cos he'd have been the first er..2nd player dragged off at half time.


E Crabtree - 8 Did exactly what he was tasked to do! came off the bench and ran hard and often, he won the collision and forced a few quick PTBs allowing England to make ground in the next play. Got a few trademark offloads away and was generally a handfull for Australia. He has'nt played for weeks and has just had an op so we can expect even better next week.

B Westwood - 7 Grafted hard and played [iAhem! [/iinteligently. Tackled very well and ran strong, he was part of the reason we stemmed Australias threequarter line in the 2nd half.

K Eastmond - 6 Never really broke the Ausies but he carried a threat to their line when he had the ball in hand. Somehow aided the fluency of our handling movements by being available and in position all the time. His defence was good.

S Burgess - 7 Not the blockbusting Burgess we will no doubt eventualy see but he still managed a few hits and did very well to get the ball down for his try. I'd have liked to see him run further out wide where he could have been more effective at making busts or offloading.

Pretty fair assessment, I would give Sinfield a 6 he improved in the second half and was better than McQuires rating. Also give Eastmond a 7, he gave the team more threat and a better balance when going to half back.

I'd give McGuire and Smith a combined rating of minus 26.

Apart from Tomkins who i would have judged a 6 and thats generous then i agree

This thread proves that most of you know nothing about Rugby League.

Tomkins was largely anonymous and didn't have a good game until the last 15 minutes and yet most of you rate him higher than Crabtree who did nothing but cause the Aussies problems every time he got the ball. Some of you even rate him higher than Burgess who was a class above the English team and a lot of the Aussie team.

Isn't it funny how people see the same game so differently.