In their last tournament on home soil, England were truly competitive against Australia for 40 minutes of the first game and for 60 minutes of the final. The problem was that they were already out of the game first time around and couldn't sustain it the second.

England/GB's home record against New Zealand in recent years is actually pretty good (one World Cup semi-final shellacking apart). There's nothing in this current Kiwi side that IMO suggests England can't turn them over.

If England fail to reach the final I'd regard that as a disappointment personally.

England should do well against New Zealand especially on home soil with a weakened kiwi side.
Australia always appear to have an extra gear or two against England.
In 2009 Australia went to a dominant first half lead and then appeared to go into cruise control, if it was a Horse race they would have been swabbed.

In the second game it was fairly tight in the first half but when Australia put their foot down in the second half the score ended up being a 30 point hiding, nothing close about 16-46, the game goes for 80 minutes usually.

Gareth Widdop played Stand Off all season for the minor premiers, and Jack Reed played centre all season for the team that finished 3rd - I think its fair to say that were they Aussies, they would be in contention for the Australian team.

Not really.
Reed may have come into SOO contention next year but even with the weakness in the current Test team Centres he would not have been picked before Inglis or Tonga.
Widdop would not have been in contention either when you have a certain Darren Lockyer in that spot.
Thurston will take Lockyers spot next year with Cronk moving into the Halfback role.

There is a place for team spirit and the whole being greater than the sum of it parts - but there is no substitute for quality. Belief is great - you might believe you can stop Darren Lockyer having the ability to do it is a completely different thing!!

If the opposition have the same level of belief but better players they will beat you which is what has happened in the past.

RU is a completely different game where the difference in quality are easier to hide - RL is a faster more open game with fewer defenders - quality really tells.

Ill be interested to see how the Kiwis go on Friday but I'm confident the 2 sides will be meeting again in the final. England don't have the quality, talent or coach to finish higher than third place. Wales won't win a game.

other than benji against rangi, who would you say is so much better for new zealand than england? other than the coach i dont agree at all.

The Kiwis have a beatable look about them don't they but they have huge belief and in Marshall a player that could rip us apart on his own.

As a person who's not seen a great deal of NRL recently it'll be interesting to see how good these lads like Locke, Beale and Foran are. If they're as good as billed then they'll have a big say on this tournament.

And yet Tomkins did not last year, despite his big billing.

Put him in the Kiwi side and he'd stand a better chance. We were woeful last year and missing a lot of players.

No excuses this year. He's got as good a group of players around him as he's ever had and he needs to step up. I just hope his head and body are right. He's not going in to this Four Nations in the best of form.

This illiusion of tomkins being crap internationally is nothing but bull being made up of fans who decided they dont like him running rings around there best players. look at billy slater he hardly makes these amazing runs at international level every time he plays and hes playing in alot better set up,,, cant remember what game it was but sam had lockyer in hes pocket all game at the dw and skinned him on a few aswell.

If you truely believe sam isnt if not the best player in the england set up well you might aswell give up trying to understand rugby league.. your like this ref at widnes st marries who told him to shut up as he knows nothing about rugby league obvs not knowing who he was at the time (just started playing regularly for wigan at the time)

Tomkins has been nothing more than average in the few games he's played for England so far. He's only had 2 full seasons and he'll ge better, but so far he's not been close to living up to the hype bestowed upon him, and to compare him to Slater at this stage is laughable, Slater is arguably the best FB of all time and has torn England apart on many ocasion . He's not Englands best player either. Englands best player is out injured.

I think it was hes first full season at wigan and they was playing at DW, he stepped lockyer 3 or 4 times and wrapped him up on a few as it was 6v6 then as he wasn't playing fullback. i think billy slater is immense and i support the storm as my NRL team as they have strong connection to wigan just as i'll be watching the bunnies alot more next season as madge is there coach, i wasn't making a comparision between the two what i was stating is that you cant expect him to go on these jinking runs and beat everybody all the time just as billy slater doesn't at international level and he makes some huge mistakes also,,, but to call tomkins poor is just laughable. Because so many fans dislike him they are constantly looking for negatives to try and make them selfs believe he isn't good. England should feel lucky to have him because whos the alternates?