Because i CBA to go through the match thread, i will say that it was physical fitness that was the difference tonight. That's all.

Should the tournament be played in a 2 week break mid-season? A chance to see all players in all teams at the peak of their season fitness, not at the end of a 9 month slog surely would make for a more even, entertaining spectacle.

Was your post a joke?

Same old tried and tested players like Eastmond and Shenton do you mean?

Me thinks you listen to Stevo and Eddie raving about some player on Sky, saying how they should play for England just for doing one skillfull moment.

We were well in the game until Shenton got injured. His deserves his position and never let us down.



What? At 20? IIRC Edwards wasn't hitting the heights in a half back position at aged 20 and Gregory had done jack at international level at the same age. I'm pretty sure that Gregory was in one of the sides that was flogged by 'The Invincibles' when he was the same age. In fact both had done jack at international level at the same age as either Eastmond or Tomkins. I've just checked and Edwards played his first game, off the bench, against Australia aged 20 and didn't face them again until 1992 when he was 26. Gregory's record against Australia was 2 wins and 8 losses. Hardly heroic.

thank you you saved me the trouble.

You really don't know what your talking about do you ?

Edwards started from playing at Wembley in 1985. He was 16 !

If you think that that was the only difference then you need to get your medication changed.

The passing at speed and accuracy, the support play, the kicking game, that speed of thought and action, the skill level , the depth of the sqauad were all far more important.

England have some great players, have some potentially grat players BUT the Aussies are still years ahead of us.

The biggest difference is number of quality players. GB have 5 or 6 very good players, and the Aussies have around 25 so you rarely notice the difference when they have to drop a new face into the team.

We stuck with them for around an hour, which is no mean feat, but couldn't match them after that because our better players were exhausted and that really exposed our poorer players.

We can close the gap, and people like Ellis and Burgess being in the NRL will help, but we must generate more quality in numbers. Club teams playing rafts of average overseas players simply doesn't help and they effectively penalise the England team as a result.

I suggest you read the posts again before making posts like that

What's that got to do with what we're talking about?

No he didn't.
Edwards played at Wembley v Widnes in 1984 at the age of 17 years and 6 months.

He signed for Wigan on his 17th birthday in October 1983.

]If shenton is nowhere near as good at attacking as senior how come he scored more tries than him? the differance between senior and shenton is that at international level senior was put into space, shenton hasnt been so he hasnt had the chance to get on the score board, and he has been our best back in defence by far.

Senior provides more tries for his winger than for himself (which Shenton doesnt do) but is more than capable of running through on his own if he needs to. That is why Leeds finished where they did and Cas finished where they did.

I never denied Shenton was good defensively, read what I wrote.

I think there's rather more to the final positions than a single centre on each team.

We could list all the other positions aswell but then we get in to a club vs club tit for tat.

I just think Senior offers more than one threat going forward. You shut down Shenton and that whole left side attack dies. Everytime someone shut down Senior this season it resulted in a Ryan Hall try.