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

Daily Mail article gives player ratings out of 10 - reasonable IMO: www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... eport.html

Daily Mail article gives player ratings out of 10 - reasonable IMO: www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... eport.html

It wasn't so much a tired pack but the replacement pack that was the problem. If you add Graham, O'Loughlin and McIlorum for Mossop, Ablett and Widdop then the game probably goes differently.

Around the period your subs come on is where the game changed
Mins 27 - 45.....Aus 22-0 England
Rest of the match.....Aus 6-20 England

An 18 minute spell we let cost us because WE let momentum slip, not Australia wrestled away, WE lost.

Watching the Australian team they were good and effective, but nothing amazing that is unstoppable or unbeatable.
After watching today the 1 team that most stands in our way in this tournament.......is England.
We have to cut out the shooting ourselves in the foot. Cut out the knock ons, the silly penalties, go with a two hooker system instead of moving halves around.

Good points. But the way I was looking at it was we wouldn't have need to rotate if the big guys weren't tired.

I agree with a stronger bench we'd have done better but there will be injuries and maybe suspensions during the tournament and so the strength of the 24 will be important and, as you have highlighted, there are weakneses. Australia were at about 40% of their optimum today. For these reasins I think you are being a little over-optimistic.

Don't bother wasting your breath - The guy you are arguing with believes Kevin Sinfield is a better stand off than John Woods.... He's obviously mentally ill.

Couldn't beleive the state of the pitch today...looked like we were playing at Glastonbury
Players losing their footing (Slater slipped 3 times on one early kick return) & fist sized chunks coming off the surface. Spoiled the game a bit for me, made the more agile players less of a threat.