I'm afraid to say, if twitter feeds are to be believed, that the opinion of rugby league took a massive beating today.

maybe by union folk!

Whose?

I think league fans and other sporting fans will agree that we saw two very interesting and enjoyable games.

I must admit to being fairly despondent at half time, Australia played some very good rugby and made the most of chances that came their way. It seemed like their whole thought process was much quicker than England’s. It's a shame that Sinfield's half chance could not have been backed up - a try at that point in the game for England would have been interesting.

The big plus point for me is the way England handled it mentally at half time. They take massive credit for a brave and at times creative fight back. Australia can be "got at".

To me, Smiths policy of blooding youth is vindicated. Some of the kids were shredded in the first half but put that behind them for the second. You just simply cannot buy that sort of experience.

France, on the other hand, were decimated by injury etc. and did more than can be expected against the world champs.

I've got one big headache this morning

Couple of observations!

The Aussie switched off in the 2nd half. They KNEW they had the game won no matter what England did but to be fair England did put up a slightly better display.

My wife commented on this, the Aussies turned up in shirts , ties and blazers, very BUSINESS like wheras England turned up in leisureware tracksuits etc.

Very smart but shows an attitude of mind.

Might be only a small point but significant.

They may have switched off initially, but there is no way they stayed that way when England started scoring.

England changed tack in the second half and deserve all the credit.

This thread has been a thread of two halves. The first one was anger and being depressed about the England performance.

The 2nd half was just everyone ing themselves laughing at Zod trying to explain (with his Hull KR tinted specs on, no less) why Fox would have been better at having Inglis in his pocket rather than T Briscoe.

The aussies would never have scored any long distance tries if Fox had played, it's common sense mate

Taking a look at that right side defence in the first half, I simply don’t understand why we had Sinfield and Mcguire defending outside Smith. I would understand if Smith was a big powerful defender you would take on the strong running forwards but that isn’t the case

For the opening try, Smith defended inside Mcguire and Inglis got on the outside of Mcguire with an excellent play

The second try saw Slater get outside Smith with a similar play – England seemed to be lined up OK but you could argue that Smith miss-read the play and came in on Lockyer too early when he seemed to be covered by Mcguire … you have to trust your inside defender in those situations

The third try saw both Mcguire and Sinfield defending outside Smith… this time Sinfield mis-read the play and came in too early on Thurston leaving the hole

Try’s 4 and 5 were from broken field, one was a play that broke down for Australia and bounced kindly, the other from a play break down for England

Both the Sky and BBC commentators said that Smith and Briscoe were exposed down the right side but for me it was organisation of the right side defence rather than individual weaknesses that caused the problem

Pluses for England to take away from the game is that Australia don’t have the impact from the bench that they used to have – the old adage was that Australia could send three teams over to beat us but I don’t see that with the players in this squad – they are dominant due to having some very big game players in Cam Smith (who bossed the game in the first 20) Lockyer, Slater and Inglis

Sinfield played well when he was moved to 9 and got more involved in the middle of the park – Burgess and Crabtree offered some impact from the bench and Shenton and Hall seemed to have little problem containing Hodges and Hayne

FFS man, any idiot can see the problem was Lee Smith and Maguire in defence, is this personal attack on Briscoe because he replaced your winger who actually played himself out of the reckoning?

Don't disagree about others being at fault for the defensive positioning, but it common sense that if your back three-three don't return the ball quick enough then you'll invite pressure.

Was T Briscoe ill last night, Ive heard he threw up after chasing Inglis when he scored?

So Shaun Briscoe should be out of the picture too based on what you've just said?