No Burgess (take your pick), Ellis, Widdop, Reed or Heighington (not that he'll get picked) from the NRL.
Also, no Brough or Roby (injured) so we didn't have our first choice half-backs and were light in the pack. Not to mention out of form centres in Shenton (picked on reputation) and Bridge (doesn't even play there for his club at the mo), Sinfield at stand-off (WTF?!) and a very poor bench and it's no wonder we got beat.

England's strength is unfortunately not in it's depth. We've known that for a while, but at least the Exiles game shows us this (unlike a game against France or Wales that makes our 4th string look like world beaters). We know who can and can't cut it,

Compare the team that faced the Exiles to the team likely to be in the 4N:
England (June 2011):
S.Tomkins, Hall, Bridge, Shenton, Briscoe; Sinfield, Myler; Peacock, Robinson, Graham, Westwood, Wilkin, O'Loughlin.
McIllorum, Carvell, J.Tomkins, Morley.

England (October 2011):
S.Tomkins, Charnley, Reed, Yeaman, Briscoe; Widdop, Brough; Peacock, Roby, Graham, Westwood, Ellis, O,Loughlin.
Robinson, Carvell, Morley, Heighinton.

*Think Sam Burgess is injured IIRC, and don't think Luke has been picked.

We are getting better but still third place I fear. Man for man we are still light years behind Australia in most positions and depth of talent and slipping further behind NZ as more and more Kiwis play NRL.

I'd take both Slater and Locke over Tomkins
Roby is not close to Smith

Our forwards match up well and it is not usually in the pack we lose games

How does this years likely team match up to the last time we had a really decent team that could more than match the Aussies?(1994 1st Test)?

Davies, S.Tomkins,
Robinson, Charnley,
Connolly, Reed,
Hunte, Yeaman,
Offiah, Briscoe
Powell, Widdop,
Edwards, Brough;
Harrison, Peacock
Jackson, Roby
Joynt, Graham
Betts, Westwood
Farrell, Ellis
Clarke. O,Loughlin
SubsGoulding, Robinson
McDermott, Carvell
Bateman, Morley
Cassidy, Heighinton

Can't see charnley or Yeaman getting a run out as first choice.

We are getting better with kids like BJB, Watkins, lomax, mossop, etc but let's get real- our two world class players are Tomkins and Roby, slater is better than sam and Roby is probs behind smith, farrah and tennis.

I bet if you search the forum back to the start of the 2009 4-Nations you'd find a similar thread about how exciting the England team was going to be with the introduction to the squad of all these bright young talents like Kyle Eastmond, Richard Myler, Sam Tomkins, Sam Burgess, Michael Shenton, Tom Briscoe, Peter Fox, Ryan Hall..........

The problem is always going to be the same. Strength in depth. We can put a competitive 17 down on paper but as soon as there is an injury in a key position we're knackered! If Tomkins, Widdop or Roby were injured for example their replacement is nowhere near of the same standard. If Slater gets injured they can bring in Hayne or Boyd or Dugan etc. As long as the pool of players is so much bigger to chose from, we're going to struggle. If we can get a full strength team out we might nick the odd game here and there, although I have no confidence in the current coach for that to even happen! We cant be any worse than last year anyway!

Hunte, Powell, Bateman, Cassidy, McDermott and even Robinson-none of that lot were world class.

I reckon we've got a big chance this autumn.

But i'll be honest, I always do. My heart always rules my head when it comes close to England and Leigh games.

I certainly agree with the message from the OP. While I have been desperately hoping for a British/English win in the last decades, the reality is that since the mid 90’s we simply haven’t had the world class players to take on the Southern Hemisphere teams (or where we have had them we have had to play them out of position such as Sculthorpe at 6)

Despite the hope, you would look at the team sheet and see too many weak links to expect a win

I do think things are changing. We have half a dozen players who can lay a genuine claim to being world class or the potential to get there very soon. Tomkins, Briscoe, Widdop, Lomax, Graham, Roby and Burgess are as good as I have seen in a generation with the likes of Watkins, BJB, Reed and more to complement the backs. The average age of that lot must be about 22/23 or so. Add to that the more established players such as Ellis and O’Loughlin who are by no means past it and we could put out a very competitive team

We only have to look at the English cricket team to see what assembling a quality group of players can do – from the late 80’s to the mid 2000’s there was just as much chance of England cricket team beating the Aussies as the RL team – that has been completely turned around and yet the majority of RL fans still have the same defeatist attitudes as ever

Yes very overrated and his lack of size will expose him against the southern hemisphere teams.

Exactly. A reasonable finisher when given a big open space to run into, but otherwise the definition of average.

While the NRL is a stronger competition overall, I don’t understand why that therefore excludes any SL players from being world class

Was Ellery Hanley only world class when he was playing in Australia – what about Offiah and Jason Robinson, were they average players and only world class after they crossed the equator?

These players were playing in the English league when the standard was even further behind the Australian comp and yet they were world class

I think the OP should watch a few episodes of NRL Fulltime on Sky before posting! Ha ha ha

The NRL players do look good when you see those 60 seconds of highlights from each game don’t they?