It was just awful tactics. The NZ pack weren't going to roll over as easily as last week yet we think we have and amazing steamrolling pack as usual when we have class like Watkins and Hall out wide.

He's not. He's a decent second row. It's not his fault that he's not a centre, it's McNamara's fault for picking him there. We need to put a centre in the centre at international level. Or we effectively surrender any chance of attacking on one entire flank.

Im not saying they wouldn't but they both offer abit of flair and i think one if not both of them would have produced something to get us over the line today.
Also Brough is only Scottish because of McNamara if he wasn't the coach, on form over the last few years Brough would certainly be English.

Watkins looked dangerous when he had the ball, he just didn't have the ball enough. Graham and Tom Burgess were pretty good too, and S'OL played well enough.

Burgess has had a superb season as well, though, and he's better under the high ball than McGilvery, so I don't have a problem with Burgess being picked.
Cudjoe hasn't had a great season from what I've seen, but I actually think Shenton deserved, and should've been picked at centre this series.

With a few minutes to go Chris Hill and Roby were the top 2 tacklers on the pitch despite only playing about 40-45 mins each. Surely some of the back rowers who played 65-70 mins should have been picking up some of that slack. It isn't exactly like they were offering anything useful in attack. Also think it was stupid to drag Roby off in a close game with 12 mins to go. Our halves were appalling so our best chance of somebody producing some magic was surely Roby?

I also agree Burgess has being good all year but he is being played on the wrong side playing him out of position on the right wing when he plays left wing, JM and LC play right side for club and both must have had pretty good seasons with Jerry being top of try charts,Leroy must have had a hand in alot of those ( maybe not i don't know... queue the Hudds fan).
Shenton seemed to be carrying injury's towards back end dislocated shoulder twice last year i think so may have decided against the call to get right for pre season (also dont know).

To be fair, with those half backs and that structure we've effectively surrendered the chance of attacking on either flank.

Through 160 minutes, I'm struggling to remember either centre getting good ball in space.

Very poor performance with the ball. Absolutely no imagination to our play at all. The back row were terrible they didn't create space for the third pivot or centres barely at all, all game.

We were incredibly boring to watch.

Widdop has plenty of energy, unfortunately it's about the same as a headless chicken

I quite enjoyed the first thirty minutes, there was some great defence from England, although N.Z didn’t have a clue how to break them down.

The only try of the game was fortuitous but how did Graham fail to score to equalise?

The game seemed to get scrappier as it went on & I was glad when the ref blew up for the end, if that’s the best the sport can muster, God help us.

We were saying exactly the same thing Hill and Roby good defensive efforts, the half backs were not running up to the line there was only Roby running up before passing so McBanana took him off.

Overall two poor teams with one of them with a reasonable kicking game, best player for England I would probably say Chris Hill. I don't rate Widdop at all, had 2 good kicks in the first half and that was it, he didn't help George Williams at all as a partnership. Lastly we must have a better than Bateman in the centres stick him in the back row where he belongs.