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.

What I said was Sinfield is, IMO, a better all round RL player. I also feel he did a better job today that Wood would hypothetically have done.

I'd love a carbon copy of Woods at Warrington right now, preferably the Leigh version but I'd take the Wire version if that was on offer.

Could Sinfield play full back? ,wing maybe? ,centre perhaps, 6 and 7 ? ,John played all of them , usually much better than the players who had it as their recognised position, Sinfield is a 13 , but not as good a 13 as O,loughlin, but he can kick, but ultimatley it shows the weakness within british RL, that he is potentially our best option at HB

I dont know how good or bad he was today I havent watched it yet

It's test match vs Australia, you're going have to beat them with 17 guys not 13. Had Mossop and Tom kept up the good work then maybe George and Hill wouldn't have been so tired having to try wrestle the momentum back which had been lost in their absence.

I think it's dubious to say Australia were as low as 40% today, maybe 70-75%. But then again England were without certain key starters in Graham and O'Loughlin and a possible interchange hooker (who'd have better kept the balance of the side) in McIlorum so we weren't near the 100% mark either. Add in that we had 3 debuts in the forwards and Hill too only has a few caps (and all will be better for more games/experience before the semis/final) then things aren't that mis-sided.

May just be me, but I don't think the halves were as bad as people are making out on here. Maybe it's just one of those excuses that people love because they aren't getting their own way. I thought Sinfield and chase had good games.

Starting pack was spot on. Hill and Roby were superb and I thought Ferres was very good too.

Graham in for Mossop (who looked pretty much out of his depth against their forwards) and I think we are set.

You don't think Burgess deserves a ban?
He should have been sent off.

For the supposed strike Centre, Watkins was almost invisible in attack.

Burgess (G) was outstanding today, not just going forward, but his tracking back and defensive work was equally impressive - Disappointed by Burgess's S & T
Ferres deserves another start after today.
Hill did a great job - his offloads to Roby caused them a few problems
Westwood's lucky to be in the team - becoming as big a liability as Hock - he should start on the bench for the next big game
Charnley's touchline incident was disappointing. His side wasn't used much in attack
Just don't know what to do about the halves - looks like they're set in stone but would like to see Widopp given a chance...
We need another hooker on the bench to help spell Roby...
And finally, I just don't think Tomkins is or will ever be bona fide full-back - and IMO at international level he needs to be much closer to the action...

We were well in the game, but got tired towards the end of the first half. Ball started going to ground and we killed ourselves with penalties. The Aussies also had the bounce of the ball e.g. that kick that went dead by about a millimetre - if it had stayed in the field of play Slater wouldn't have made it out. Instead they get a tap and go and score at the other end... Also the ref was way out of his depth and ridiculously inconsistent in his dishing out of lying on penalties...

I just don't think the halves are that big an issue.

We scored 4 tries, aus scored 5.

I think they took us round the park pretty well, kicked decently and we attacked with decent structure when we could.

The problem was in our supposed legendary pack. They ran out of ticker after just 20 minutes. Specifically Westwood and surgess were abit of a problem. Hill, ferres and gurgess were the backbone of the pack. There was yards, offloads, and workrate in defence without the stupid penalties and mistakes.

But westwood and to a lesser extent surgess kept giving penalties away.

Ablett, mossop and turgess all added little and you can't afford that from an internchange bench at this level. Our main source of go forward was from gurgess.

The sooner o loughlin and graham are back, the better.

He'll get a game, should be more.

It's crept into his game and will end up tarnishing his good reputation, If it hasn't already.