I thought every ‘English’ player, played well below their best. There wasn’t one who has a stand-out game, or a real stinker.

Compare that to the Aussies, Gannon was immense, Thaiday was like a ranging bull giving the halves time to control the game.

it was great to watch Thaiday that first half,he was absolutely immense.

I'd add players here playing too many games (that was Kevin Sinfield's 42nd or 43rd game this season and it'll be interesting to see how many of last night's team will be expected to turn out for their club sides in 5 or 6 weeks' time for meaningless Xmas/New Year friendlies) in a competition with too many clubs for the available talent, leading to too many uncompetitive games.

Ryan hall, tomkins, graham the stars for us in the four nations

time for new blood in the front row...morley and peacock to go in time for world cup....crabtree, mccarthy scarsbrook, mossop to come in??

sinfield and chase dont work.... no kicking game for england...bring brough in to fix this (he was in the squad but actually got injured in training so had to pull out)

All hail Paul Gannon.

Which ever way we look at it we simply are,nt good to beat the aussies, we dont have an x factor. Lets be realistic, we put in a big performance against against what was a subdued Kiwi performance and then the media frenzy kicked in. Players making big statements and then falling well short. The aussies play at a higher intensity every week and then step it up another level for origin games etc. We will never have that because rugby league is,nt our national game.

Do you not think leeds and other clubs should give these players some time off at different times of the season,which at the same time would give the club the opportunity to blood some of there up and coming players.

What we lack is an out and out leader who could give the Aussies a run on their own like sculthorpe or farrell.

I think sculthorpe is the last player the Aussies genuinely respected and feared

where was the biff when inglis slammed tomkins through the advertising boards.. had one of ours done it to them, without doubt it'd be a full scale brawl, and again a scully or farrell character would've been in there too.. we genuinely are feared of them

Since when is a face grab a RL tackle ?

How long have you been watching internationals? They rely much more on individuals these days, like Thurston. Go back a few years and their team fluidity was a wonder to behold. In football terms they used to play like Brazil 1970, now more like current Brazil - they can still win and have their moments but are nowhere near the team they were.

so chronicle!! what do you want!! less domestic games! with players playing for there clubs that me you and many others go and see
or more internationals!!??
Its back to that age old question do we reduce the number of club games so that the international game is better?
How many games have the aussie squad played in this year!! and we keep sayin g the intesity of the "origin" series is immense!! err should that not be taken in to account, have they not played to many as well

For the record Chase did have 7 on his back and Sinfield 6 but Chase played the stad off role (wide running and taking the line on and second reciever) and Sinfield played the natural 7 role (organising, kicking and first receiver).

This was our best chance to beat Aus in a long time, this is one of the poorest Aus back lines I've ever seen. Uate is shaky under the high ball yet we only bombed him once and he droped it, Inglis isn't fit, Lawrence is decent but not in the same league as past AUS centres in recent years and same for Yow Yeh.

We got caught in the headlights and froze.

Most of the game we played one man rugby with no offloads and allowed Aus to put us on our backs and they slowed the PTB down far longer than we did. When we tackled we didn't put them on their backs and didn't slow the PTB down, when we played the ball quickly (Kirk Yeaman, Peacock and JJB played the ball very slowly) Roby was making plenty yards.

That game should be Peacocks last game, outstanding for so long but he's past it now. I would have had Griffin, Bailey, Mason, Crabtree and Mossop in before him for this series.

When we kicked the ball the Aussies put pressure on the kicker but when they kicked it they had all day and they chased the kick very well, putting pressure on Tomkins making him drop the ball. Only Jack Reed cased the kicks very well all series.

The intensity in defence wasn't there either, it was for the Aussies. We stopped moving in in defence right from the off allowing them do do what they wanted with the ball.

I don't think we are that far behind, we showed in the first game what we can do and against the Kiwis but it's as if the players haven't got the belief to beat the Aussies, an inferiority complex so to speak. We gave them far too much respect and we should have given it to them, in recent times when we have given it to the Aussies we are usually in with a shout, Ben Westwood gave everything he had in defence and attack all series and that's how our forwards should play against the Aussies.

Time to draw a line under this series and start a fresh:

McNamara should be replaced with a part time coach, Tony Smith would get my vote.
Ellery Hanley brought in to the coaching set up in some capacity and also Mal Reilly, someone with a lot of experience, respect and mental toughness.
A new breed of players should be brought through into the England team to get us ready for the WC 2013 e.g. Charnley, Mossop, Myler, Patrick, Lomax and older players who have tried and failed should be dropped e.g. Peacock and Wilkin. Heighington didn't impress me but he might be one of those players whom you don't really appreciate what he does untill you see it week in week out, Chase showed glimpses but out on that left side it seemed he was on a completly different wave length to Yeam and Briscoe, that can be addressed with more freindlies and England get togethers.

O the poor thing having to play 42 games how many do you think players were playing in the sixties and seventies.The trouble is we play players who aint good enough in that position at internationals.The other problem is when a player makes a break he turns to find no one in support.Roby did just that in the game looked and no one in support.The Aussie side do it and the player has options who to pass it to.On the one hand we have to blood another two props as Morley past test rugby and Peacock while a very good club player aint test class and past it.Down side is Crabtree aint test standard but will be in.If Brough had been in I belive he would have played out of his skin and caused the Aussies problems.We had a spell at Wembley when we threw the ball about and they looked ordinary then reverted to type one man up the middle rugby.

I agree with all this.

the 'too many games is wheeled out every year'

an english player will play 27 league games, maximum 5 cup games, an exiles match, and a maximum 4 playoff matches.. a total of 37, although how many of those would be intense??

australia players have 24 league games, maxiumum 4 games playoffs and 3 state of origin matches, and a mid season test against new zealand.. 32

when you consider 3 of those aussie matches are state of origin (the three of toughest games in the world) and the players often 'back up' for the clubs, and generally the league is far tougher than ours, i think it's pretty similar..