I think the thing that affects Watkins is the hype! When Sinfield is saying he's second only to Inglis as the worlds best centre before the game you then expect a performance fitting if that tag. We then get a guy who's decent at this level (doesn't let anyone down but doesn't terrorise teams as a centre of that billing should) and he gets bagged.

The reality is that he's massively over-rated. That's not to say he shouldn't be in the England team because of course he should but I think people need to stop expecting him to side step his way past seven men and fling out a 15 yard pass to send his winger in.

Couldn't agree more, we don't have anyone better, but we need to be realistic about the limitations of some of our players, especially where they have been over hyped. Part of the problem is the SL coverage which "talks up" players, and to be fair that is part of the job of people like Eddie & Stevo and the rest of the crew (employers don't tend to employ people who tell everyone their product isn't terribly good). Gale is "world class" when he tears through Wakefield's defence, Watkins is the "best centre in SL" when he beats three Salford defenders to score etc... but the reality is that the Aussie and Kiwi sides are orders of magnitude above the caliber of teams that make players like Gale and Watkins and others look so good in SL. Depending on who plays for England on Saturday I expect them to become "world class" again against Scotland. I'm reminded of the 2010 Four Nations, Atkins plays centre against the Aussies and is cruelly exposed, next game Clubb starts against PNG and score four tries!

pretty much this.

Same for me. However, should we blame Dave Woods and co. for generating hype? It's a frequent beef that the game and its stars lack profile and it's difficult to see that changing if even friendly media were to deliver entirely honest assessments. And Watkins certainly deserves no blame in this; a more self-effacing individual you could not wish to meet.

No harm in generating hype, and I think there are enough stories within the England set-up to justify generating it. One of the best coaches in the world? Tick. One of the best forwards in the world? Tick. One of the best hookers in the world. Tick. You've got to PR the heck out of this and generate as much of a buzz as possible. Although I agree about the Sinfield's comments reg Watkins - second best centre in the world my backside...

Erm, yeah, I've just watched the game back and the drop goal that won the game doesn't actually appear to have gone through the sticks......

Am I the only one to notice this?

I've just gone through the pages and have seen your post, like mine previously, I've just done the same thing this evening. The ball squeues off to the right and misses the post doesn't it?

I thought I was going mad as I hadn't seen it anywhere online or in the news.

He missed!

I've got to say it does appear that way from the video I've seen.

Perhaps we should introduce goal post and crossbar technology.

There was a a fair bit of talk about it starting on page 9 of this thread, when a video came out on Facebook of the DG. Like others have said, there were about 4 or 5 England players looking directly at the ball going over and not one reacted to it and all the NZ'ers did. There was also people that were behind the sticks at the game that say it went over. Does look dodgy on the video but that could be just perspective and it's hard to tell with the ball and posts being the same colour.

It's the problem with camera angles for drop goals, if the ball arcs across the posts and you don't get a definitive camera angle there will always be speculation. I think it is very telling that none of the players contested the decision, and that nobody who was behind the sticks appears to be contesting it. The argument seems to come from some debatable camera angles discovered after the game itself.

Get two refs into international football,one watching the offside,the other watching the interference at the play the ball,how obvious is this.

It's just gonna be a ''trick of the camera''. If it genuinely didn't go over there would have been reaction from players and fans, fans would have started booing and you would have seen arm waving, players would have been running to the official and appealing. As it is there was just grim resignation from players and fans closest which suggest no matter what the camera appears to depict, those closest in the flesh saw it go over.

BBC have just shown it again going over no problem.

Just because he said it did doesn't make it true, that little montage just shows even more that it didn't go through. As fir the players looking up, they all looked up too late.to notice.one hazy bit of footage that does not change the shape of the post as the ball travels past is all they could come up withto 'prove' it went over...laughable.