I'm not sure we were rubbish we are just England, what I mean by that is I've lost count of the number of times England or GB have won the opening test which surprisingly basically guarantees the next two sell out. Only to lose the second and get destroyed in the third. (call me a cynic "maybe I am but I've seen it all before"icon_wink.gif.

I purposely watched the body language of the Kiwi's after last weeks performance and TBH they didn't look to bothered to me.

Worst game of RL I've ever been to. It made a poor game of union look exciting.

No line speed or depth in attack. We may have a great pack but the took the ball standing still.

Even when we tried to move the ball wide our timing was all out and passes were awful.

No dummy runners no decoys no idea.

Worst game of RL I've ever been to. It made a poor game of union look exciting.

No line speed or depth in attack. We may have a great pack but the took the ball standing still.

Even when we tried to move the ball wide our timing was all out and passes were awful.

No dummy runners no decoys no idea.

Some of us said McBanana was a mistake when he was first appointed.

I remembered being attacked for calling him Mcbanana by one of the posters talking about how shambolic England were today.

McBanana is a crap coach and always has been .

Yet it still seems the English RL cannot get their heads around this.

This is a woeful NZ team shorn of half it's first teamers and yet we still cannot win.

Their should be wholesale changes for next week.

Gale and Cudjoe in and probably McGilvray.

I would be unsure about him under the high ball but NZ dont have a good kicker so less of a problem than it might be.

The team needs a bit of a buzz and some fresh players might be needed.
I would drop Hodgson as well.

Agree we should pick the best we have in every position. Maguire should be there with Widdop (one of the best halfbacks in the NRL) Gale as backup & williams around the squad for the experiance. Magilvary is up the top of the try scoring & should be played outside Cudjoe. John Bateman is not a centre he could cover if a centre is taken off during the game. I think he will be a terrific international second row in a couple of seasons but at the moment we have better. I have allways thought it a mistake to pick players out of position. I am a fan of Josh Hodgson but I would start with Roby & bring josh on to spell him but off the bench he can cover loose forward or second row at a push if injuries occour allowing three big forwards on the bench as well.

My picks for worst player were Williams who didn't seem to be able to actually hold onto the ball and Bateman who just didn't seem to have any strength, clattered into tackles and was floored immediately with no progress made.

It's ironic that mcguire used to be selected all the time when he was less of a complete standoff and more of a runner, then in his twlight years when he has honed his skills and become a real chief and creator, he is nowhere near the set up.

I'm not sure it was down to individuals we just had no structure in attack. We could have had Thurston in there and been almost as bad.

We badly missed an attacking link player, but then again there were no runners anyway. Absolutely awful attacking structure.

Maybe the stint in defence took it out of them.

I think you have a fair point about Englands extra effort in defence, on reflection I think someone like gale playing what he see's in front of him might be the best option, Widdop holds the team in position & directs well but he will not have that unexpected play in his bag or a speculative off the cuff play, Williams I am sure has that but he needs time to grow in confidence at this level to be able to fight his corner with the coach. An example today was Roby quiet rightly putting a kick through into space but no other player on the side was quick thinking enough to realise what he had done. Maybe it was fatigue after defending or they are coached to play a ridgid pattern with no room for flair?

What's Gale's passing game like?

Maybe people should look at why we had to do so much defence not use it as an excuse for a poor performance. Lucky NZs halves were terrible in the first half. If SJ was playing the game would have been finished in the first half

Pretty good.

If he's alongside Widdop I hope he doesn't, tbh.

We are playing the simplest RL game plan possible, if not one up then its a drop off from first receiver. Thats it, thats our plan. NZ can pack the middle and shoot up because can't and wont get it wide quickly. Its a game plan the rests on the other team playing poorly.

We have probably the most gifted british centre to come through this Millennium and a speedy, exciting young winger outside him and they havent been given the ball in any kind of space in 160mins.

We have one of the biggest, strongest wingers in the world on the other side who is virtually unstoppable near to the line playing outside two second rowers who are great defensively but limited going forward.

This isnt a talent issue, its a tactical one. To not score is unacceptable and we didnt even look like scoring, the lack of creativity was startling. This wasnt a case of players not having the tools to execute, its about a game plan that left them nothing to execute.

And lets not pretend we are building something here. Only Burgess and Williams are under 21, and Bateman 22. We have as many players 29 and over as we do 23 and under.

And lets not pretend that this is an accurate reflection of the quality of the English players, this isnt a case that we just arent good enough to expect to be beating Australia and NZ, McNamara's England have lost against Italy, struggled to beat Samoa, and lost to the exiles.

Luke Gale isnt the answer and McGilvery or Burgess, Cudjoe or Bateman arent taking us up a level. McNamara has to go. Being held scoreless is just unacceptable. But win or lose next week, England RL need to be looking at why we dont have a stand out half, why we dont have 2 centres demanding a shirt and why there arent 5 more behind them knocking on the door, where are our ball playing second rowers. What are we doing to mitigate our weaknesses? We have some, and we have places we need better players, but we also arent getting the best out of the great players we do know we do have,

Biggest disappointments for me have been Hodgson and Graham.

It was almost like they were playing not to lose. There was zero idea in attack, dull one up rugby that was as predictable as it was boring. Not sure what he's coaching our half backs, but they showed no creative spark whatsoever. We could have played for another hour and still not scored...

You can bet if Johnson had been playing today NZ would have won at a canter...