My team

Hardaker
Charnley (more urgency needed)
Cudjoe
Watkins
Hall
Tomkins
Chase
Graham
Roby
Hill
Westwood
Ferres
Sinfield

G burgess
SOL
Burrow
S burgess

There are no other props good enough so I would use Sam as a prop
Unless by some miracle j peacock or Crabtree was drafted in.

The only way McNamara will keep the job after this is to win the World Cup.
The obvious selection problems that everyone has pointed out, brough, Crabtree, the halves, t burgess etc.. Is laughable.

For pure talent and all round ability John was better than all of them, yes, and he could probably have drunk them all under the table as well

I'd agree with that except I'd start with Sam Burgess with Westwood on the bench. I may even start with Tomkins on the bench and bring him on for attacking impact.

Wow. Posts all over the place on here.

We just played a team that most thought would put 40 on us.
We could have been well ahead at half time if not for an inch on the Burgess try and a couple of decisions.
Of course they came back but that's Test rugby. We came back as well.
We made them look vulnerable.

Thought Ferris and George were great on debut. Couldn't have asked for more.
Thought Westwood needs to improve on the penalties but he was top tackler so put a good shift in.
Assuming we play them again I'd be confident of a good performance and look forward to seeing how we progress

That was Australia's warm up game, like ours againt Italy. They weren'r "up" for it - they were just treating it as a stroll beforehand. Despite not being coordinated yet they found a way to win after a strong start by England and indeeed never looked remotely like losing once they caught us up. Even before that the pitch saved us when they slipped on one or two breaks. To me, it fills me with foreboding. They'll score at will if they meet us later in the competition.

For pure talent no issue, any position outside the pack was easy for John, defencively strong, many a forward tried to intimidate him, they usualy ended up face first into the turf after a perfect Cumberland throw , pace to burn, incredible step, perfect handling not to mention a kicking game both from hand and floor that very few have ever matched, plus he only ever wanted to play for his home town team

We'll never win anything with an average coach in charge, a good coach could get that team performing at a much higher standard than McNamara ever will.

Wow, I haven't heard that phrase since the mid 1960's. The young un's will have no idea what you mean.

To be fair he coached a team to try to win the game. Too many times we've tried to contain Australia and hope to sniff something out. His game plan worked well for 20 minutes until the big pack got tired and started making mistakes and then giving penalties away. I think he was positive and that is the only way we'll win. We need to be positive but not stupid in throwing it about willy nilly but we need to be solid defensively and disciplined. it's just hard to bring everything together for 80 minutes though. I think maybe our pack is too big and inexperienced at a high level for us to sustain things.

daz..i saw a very good reason why sam burgess wont be keeping his place for the next two weeks