Quite agree, especially McGillvary, massive man, really strong and looked like he was gonna break through the line everytime he went forward. Kiwis had to use 4 men to bring him down, class player!

His ball carrying skills are just unreal. does the hard yards every week in SL!

top top player.

That was a quality game, in front of a full house on live TV. Couldn't ask for more as an RL fan.

As for the performance, England were better in every aspect of the game, apart from the right hand side defense which looked shaky, although with 2 new players on that side probably didn't help.

Looking at next year, I hope we can get a couple more back rowers who can provide some punch out wide, I'd be surprised if Farrell carried the ball a dozen times over the 3 games. Whitehead was good today, and Ferres was good across the series, but it's definitely one of our weakest areas. A possible solution would be to move Flanders into the 2nd row, and playing Sam Burgess at LF.
The halves are still our weakness, Widdop is so so average, he was outplayed by Sinfield before, and Matty Smith, and George Williams in this series. I'm not sure where an international half is going to come from in 12 months.

Indeed. Which is something that many servers of the game were quite capable of seeing, which is why McNamara gets credit for putting him in today, but loses credit for not having put him in the 1st or 2nd tests. McGilvary is an excellent example of how important wingers are to starting sets well with their kick returns.

Likewise Smith. I'm not going to go all go-eyed about his display. His kicking was far superior to anything we'd seen from Widdop or Williams, but I feel a half-back needs to offer more than just a good boot, and I still don't quite understand why Gale (who has a kicking game AND a creative game) was omitted from all three Tests. And again, from the perspective of judging McNamara, if your game plan is going to be a highly conservative one based on kicking for territory and few passing moves, then why wouldn't he include his top kicker from the beginning? It's all a bit odd.

Still, we won, and we don't get to say that very often in international RL, so for now let's enjoy it.

Exciting game, but again a dull gameplan. The one time a forward did something other than ram it up the middle (Graham passing before contact) we scored. Smith kicked well, Widdop disappointed again, our wingers were our best forwards, but the whole McNamara plan relied on good last ditch defence AND NZ being completely clueless on 4th and 5th tackle. If either Johnson OR Foran were playing instead of Hiku the Kiwis would have won by 20+ points, even with Ben Thaler's extremely partial decisions.

To the person who thinks McNamara's interview suggests he's jacking it in, well let's hope so.

The two guys coming in both added plenty. I was really impressed with McGillvary. His workrate was excellent and he was aggressive. I thought Matty Smith offered just what we needed in those conditions and he performed like he's done for us in wet conditions on a number of occasions.

Plenty to work and improve but that group of players are fantastic and there's some excellent players to come in.

Aye I was way off the mark I admit. Watkins was absolutely diabolical today world class my backside! Percival will be first choice England centre for many years to come three years younger than Watkins as well!

It shouldn't turn in to a club slanging match but I suggested Percival should be playing and rate the lad massively. As a Wigan fan it takes a classy player to impress me if they're in a Saints shirt and he does.

He's a future international without question.

Watkins had a shocker today no doubt but he's obviously miles better than that. He just had one of those days when nothing went well for him, it happens.

Thought another player with a big rep in RTS for the kiwis was poor today (and hasn't really had good games in the first two tests either) he made heavy weather of several kicks he collected today.

England have done a good job on RTS. My hearts in my mouth when he gets the ball but we generally kept him in check.

Watkins couldn't keep hold of the ball today, it was a shame because he got some decent ball to work with at times. He's been excellent in defense for the most part, though, and he's still the best centre we have.
As for Percival, he's not had an injury free season at Saints yet, and he's not shown to be consistent over a full season. The WCC showed he's still got a lot to do to prove he's an international player. I hope he does though. He's a great prospect.

I thought Tuivasa-Sheck made some great metres on us today.

I cannot believe one two people suggesting Tomkins over Hardaker at full back! Hardaker is a different class and you feel secure with him there.

Nice to see a win again, eight years is quite a while, but both were against weakened Kiwi sides and we all know what happened a year later last time. We won the game because we played better, the game was a little more expansive, but more needs to come on both counts. It's easy to suggest the backs this week were better than the previous tests but that was alway going to be the case as the gameplan meant they actually received the ball and had chance to use it. Overall though the kicking game was well behind the Kiwis and all the tries from the forwards shows an ongoing problem, man of the match and series choices baffled me.

A new coach is required both to improve tactics and pick the right players. But the key thing is, our players don't have either the ability or the confidence to show the skill that the Kiwis (and the Australian side) do naturally. Look at the way they draw the man and pass the ball, offload in the tackle or just move it out wide, the play is so effortless. The way we play the game in this country has to change, just big lads barging it up the middle doesn't win big games or fans.

I'm sick of hearing this weakened NZ team rubbish. England were also missing key players, and it's par for the course at this time of year. England deserved to win, it wasn't pretty, but they were the better team over the 3 games. We'll need to improve hugely if we're to win the 4Ns, but we've set a solid platform to build on.