Don't think the pack did get smashed. Rubbish opening 20 mins cost us the game, too many errors, and then lacked the cutting edge in the last 10 of the 1st half to score. Completion rate and lack kicking game were our biggest enemies. It's all ifs and buts though, NZ were also below their best, it could have easily been 20+ at half time.

There were areas of the game where England were far far superior to the kiwis and it showed.

The kiwis couldn't cope with it so reverted to other things rather than copy England.

1) Our one man barge, head down,, backside up don't bother to even consider offloading was a joy to behold. The kiwis came nowhere near. Far far superior were England.

2) The teams view on keeping energy reserves was far superior to the Kiwis, why waste energy supporting the ball carrier because the option above was such a game breaker, plus by not running from deep less energy was used before submitting to the tackle.


At least these are positives to take from the game.

As for the Kiwis, sadly they had pace, skill, guile, strength and an open style of play which although not that successful would, with fine tuning cause the aussies problems.

England will improve for the next game that's for sure. The superior areas mentioned above will be done quicker and the Aussies WILL be worried.

You know what? The (I presume) Chinese characters in your sig are starting to look like pictures. The first two look like smiling faces wearing hats. The third looks like someone blowing a vuvuzela. The last looks like someone ski jumping. AMIRITE?

He also made more tackles than any other contender for a centre spot. His stats compare favourably against the others :-

Clubb

Meters 2568
Carries 383
Tackles 515

Atkins

Meters 2421
Carries 306
Tackles 353

Cudjoe

Meters 2608
Carries 368
Tackles 258

Shenton

Meters 1403
Carries 209
Tackles 362

This to me is one of the biggest myths of all with regards to England over the last few years.

We arent really any stronger there than NZ or Australia there no matter how much some people try to kid themselves. When we play up the middle like the old Bradford style it is so predictable and makes it easy for the defending team. Indeed we were dominated today. We look at our best offloading and playing wider and we actually make the oppositions defence work. Our backs may not be great but you cant completely ignore them in attack as England seemed to do in the first half.

must admit our pack did get more dominated than I expected. Struggling to think of any big hits they put in? Alot was down to making 70 more tackles, poor field position, not having half backs who could feed them the ball at the right time etc but I'd say only 1/2 the pack lived up to their reputation.

Have to remember NZ only played with 16 for most of game as well.

He has had to make more tackles, he played for a poor team. This would also explan why he has missed more I suppose.

What concerns me the most though is this. In the Super League, against backlines from the mighty Bradford, Crusaders, Salford, Catalans etc etc, the % of tackles missed are as follows:

Cudjoe 4.65%
Atkins 8.50%
Shenton 9.39%
Clubb 17.86%

He's a liability we can't afford imo. Missing nearly 1/5 against poor backlines is shocking, imagine what he would miss against some of the top NRL backs!

I'm not saying you should ignore the backs, use them as much as possible! All I'm saying is that they're not good enough to take advantage of the possession they're given. The forwards are capable of matching NZ, unfortunately the backs aren't.

england were pretty much useless.

too much dropped ball

too much missed tackles.

scoreline couldve been much worse and they were down a player for most of the game

fair enough Dally, but I like to look at the positives.

NZ were obviously fired up, putting in the shots in front of the home crowd, that was always to be expected.

And I thought NRL refs had sped up the play-the-ball?? There are specific skills and technique to slowing down the tackle but all we saw from NZ was messing about on the floor and loads of pushing & shoving at the ptb. Found the ref's lack of control there frustrating.

Too much dropped ball and some weak defence from England, but when we got a roll-on we looked dangerous. Unfortunately we failed to control the ruck and let NZ get roll after roll at pace and pin us back in the first half.

Widdop too weak at full-back. He showed it against the Maori; when anyone of any size breaks he seems to just throw himself at their legs and hope for the best - Sam at least has great tackling technique and can bring anyone down.

There's definitely potential; cut out the errors and slow the ruck and we've got a chance. Let them come at us on a roll and we'll be annihilated.

I thought Archer had a game again, surely this bloke has pictures of the ref's boss in a compromising position with an animal

Nearly finished watching the game. Absolutely no refereeing inclination either way so far. I had a look at the final penalty counts and they reflect my observation. Pretty much what I suspected.

I'm not going to pay attention to any more cries of uneven refereeing. I should've learnt that after posters still tried to make ref excuses after the Kangaroos pasted England in the final last year. To those who want to whinge, get a grip.

On the team performances. England can do some good things when they get on a roll, but there's just not enough threat across the park to create worries for Test standard defence. The forwards at parity with their opposition (which they failed to reach tonight) isn't good enough. They need to dominate for most of the game for any chance of an English win. I simply can't see this happening against either New Zealand or Australia. There's quite a few good, tough players in the pack, some very good, but they're essentially overrated by their fans.

I expect a much better performance next week, this was a wake-up call that they shouldn't have needed. But a win is hard to see.

The Kiwis, if they improve throughout the tournament like usual, will be very tough to beat. They just looked way more organised and far better equipped across the park. You can see their ideas, confidence and motivation (in contrast to England). The timing is still out, but if it clicks...damn.

More than ever i'm not willing a complete performance from Australia tomorrow. I could be wrong, but I don't expect PNG to be a good litmus test and if we don't thrash them, i'll be a little bit concerned all week.

What was Luke's problem? Kept being right dirty. Had a go at the defenders nearly everytime he played the ball, and kept putting in cheap efforts in the tackle, as well as a clear trip on Ellis in the 42nd minute.