Not a lot of praise for the Italians here. They've got some good players & if they had Campese & Gower to help steer them around they could be a very handy side.

Shock result but a tough hit out will be more beneficial to England than a 70 pt win would have been.

...not many of them are Italian though and it's not like England RL aren't used to losing to Australians is it.

Haha jeez what can you say? Pathetic but atleast expectations will not be off the scale next week infact as things stand we are looking at a cricket score.

Things can only get better eh?

He's from Sheffield mate

Sinfield needs to retire from international RL with immediate effect.

It is all a little bit knee jerk, a decent performance against the Aussies next week and today is forgotten.

For me it's difficult to get rid of the niggle that this year is going to be another one of "if onlys" and tbh it all boils down to the coach. Since he's taken over there have been so many questionable selections, picking names rather than on form, sticking with certain players even though there are better options. This squad for the world cup has had me banging my head on the wall less than most McNamara squads, but there are still big question marks, most notably the halves and centres. But then again it hasn't been individual performances that have let us down as a whole. We look like a poorly coached team IMO.

We've got a genuine world class back 3 in Tomkins, Charnley and Hall who don't get their hands on the ball nearly as often as they should. We never look like we've got set moves ready. The half back partnership of Sinfield and Chase doesn't work, we saw this in 2011 but he will stick with it, and it will continue not to work. The decision to go to SA for warm weather and high altitude training does seem a strange one, most of the Wigan lads will still have been pi$$ed when they got on the plane, so by the time they had acclimatised to the jetlag I'm not sure how much top quality training will have happened.

I really hope I am wrong, that today was just a blip and we hit the ground running for the next 6 weeks, starting next Saturday. But from what we have seen from England in the last 3 years under McNamara, I am expecting disappointment once again.

How is losing to a fabricated team full of third rate Australians with a team that you can bet would have been close to McNamaras first choice team a knee jerk reaction exactly?

It's an absolute embarrassment and the sooner people wake up and acknowledge the total mess the game is in the better.

You can bet all will be well when we are 'gallantly' beaten next week though, because we showed 'heart' and 'potential'


It's been the same old for decades and any other sport would have pulled through. We are so decrepit and incapable that the same old story doesn't repeat itself it gets worse.

How is losing to a fabricated team full of third rate Australians with a team that you can bet would have been close to McNamaras first choice team a knee jerk reaction exactly?

It's an absolute embarrassment and the sooner people wake up and acknowledge the total mess the game is in the better.

You can bet all will be well when we are 'gallantly' beaten next week though, because we showed 'heart' and 'potential'


It's been the same old for decades and any other sport would have pulled through. We are so decrepit and incapable that the same old story doesn't repeat itself it gets worse.

That's the spirit.

The South Africa thing was a joke from start to finish. Far too short to make up for the downside of it being such a long flight, and all I saw were pictures of players eating nice meals and generally having a good time. Now, to be fair, people have to eat, and I'm sure they worked hard, it's just that it gave a poor impression, making it look like a jolly boys day out, even if it wasn't. It worries me that players were in the mindset of posting all these 'fun' pictures. Get serious and look serious.

Anyhow, at least we've had a massive kick up the backside, so if it is fixable, it'll happen. Other than that, there is almost no positive spin you can put on today. A massive shock, and very scary. Let's hope it was just a freak and hasn't caused too much damage to confidence.

The problem with such a massive shock at this stage is the difficult decisions it poses and the danger of making a rash call now. At ths stage, the team should be building towards peak performance and rehearsing game plans. You expect a few teething troubles and can see that as quite rightly, 'warming up'. But when you get stunned like that, it inevitably raises the question 'have we got this all wrong?' Neither answer to that question makes next week a happy prospect! Of all the concerns I had about this RLWC (most of which were happily fading away), England being p00p wasn't one of them!

To be fair, he's always been poor at the top level - Fantastic player for Leeds, but he's the best example of how Super League isn't quite the at the level that Sky might like you to believe.

If the guy had any ambition to better himself, he should have done a Morley and gone to Australia years ago, instead of staying in the comfort zone of Leeds and Super League.... As a defence though, he isn't the only big name British player of recent years that this could be aimed at - Sean Long and Leon Pryce are two more similarly hyped players who always disappeared at International level.

not going to shoot them down yet, but not surprised with the players attitude as the coach hardly instills hard work and discipline by his past record.