I don't think Big Sam would agree with this comment.

If he's to stay in the starting 13, then it needs to be at 1. He doesn't offer enough as a middle pivot.

It was Bennett who said Makinson was outstanding, for a bloke (Bennett) who doesn't give much praise its outstanding in its self for him to say that, maybe some fans don't like to agree or accept his efforts in the game.
The others that came close were Whitehead, Thompson and Connor.

If he wanted to stop the attacker he needed to use his hands/arms/shoulders/upper body, not his knees.

If he didn’t want to use his knees nobody forced him to slide in on his knees.

Oh so now Bennetts word is beyond reproach, funny hasn’t been in the past. Bennett decision to pick Tm over TJ raised a few eyebrows, very typical of Bennett to support those signings and rightly so.

However you don’t need to be Wayne Bennett to know he wasn’t sensational.

That said he did well and despite me believing TJ is the better player I certainly wouldn’t drop Makinson who imo did well.

Which is exactly what I said in the first place.

Why didn't they select an Aussie ref, why Hicks?? His man management and communication is shocking, I would be furious with his referring if i was the NZ coach. He missed so much.

Why was Thaler getting over excited when making decisions.

What a shambles Ganson has made of our officials.

Seriously Wren, maybe five years ago but now he offers very little imo - he’s lost it.

Wasn't a bad game , good try from Gildart to win it, but an international class fullback and team captain should be making those sort of tackles.
Lomax is a waste of space others nothing, halfs did very little, rather have myler in at 7 and move Tomkins back to fullback. Connor and Gildart both did well enough. Makinson shaky good and bad defo give Johnson a game, (neither a tthreat to a fit Hall)
Thompson made an impact in pack. Still think Tom burgess only gets in on his surname.
Expect tougher next week. Think it will be a 3rd test decider.

Lomax was invisible in attack, but I thought he had a good game defencively.
It'll be interesting to see who replaces Todd Flanders.

AS I saked of the previous poster, who would YOU put in the halves instead of Tomkins and Williams.
I still believe that Tomkins offers far more then Myler, Myler doesnt offer much of a running threat, whereas Tomkins has a great step, decent hands and excellent vision, no to mention a bit of arrogance (which is a decent attribute in the halves).

Few things from the game:
1.Lomax would not have been sent for a head assessment if he hadn't pretended to be unconscious when he hit the deck. The incident was a lazy flap but he couldn't resist milking it. That cost him the rest of the first half.

2. The attendance was poor. Personally, England doesn't excite me like GB did. I just don't buy into it in the same way. It doesn't have the same heritage. As others have said, buy through the clubs. If my club, Wakey, could have got a fiver's commission, selling a thousand tickets is the same as selling 200 hundred home full price tickets.

3. Hicks. Likes the game at a snail's pace. Very poor ref.

4. The RL product overall. Partly number 3. The game gets stopped too often. Every scrum becomes an opportunity to refuel. Every injury is a stoppage. Every minor incident becomes a lecture. The game needs to speed up. Water carriers on only after a try. Injury stoppages only if in the way. The game needs to go back to being relentless. Now, too much play-acting and stoppages. Not the spectacle it used to be.

5. Makinson-v-Johnstone? Makinson on form. I think he offers more threat in general play and perhaps a better defensive game. Johnstone more threat in open space.

Tomkins and Lomax offer a bit more creativity, can operate at both full back and half back positions and perhaps have a better vision than what Myler can offer. That is one of the reasons the Tomkins and Lomax teams have done pretty well for the majority of the 2018 season I reckon we won't see any change in the backs for the next game, the newcomers Makinson and Connor to keep there shirts.

So if ticket prices were the same, same level of marketing, same players (yeah it would be the exact same) but instead it was GB vs NZ rather than England. Some people think there would have been a bigger crowd. Sorry but I am not buying that.

Unless bigger crowd is an extra few people as that is all it would be.

Agreed

The answer is that we'll never know, in reality. But if I think of a GB test series, I think of something more special somehow. England? Not as much. Maybe it's because there was a time when England was the second-string internationals. I was fairly ambivalent about yesterday. Wanted to watch it, but that's about it. It wasn't a must-see event.

The blame for that has little to do with England/GB and more to do with:
A/ Your perception of what constitutes top class sport.
B/ The RFL's utter inability to market the game at a national level.

The first issue is nothing more than a thin smokescreen, as regardless of if they were called GB, England or the British Isles XIII, the same 17 players would have pulled on shirts. Laziness and apathy towards attending matches is in-bedded in the psyche of RL fans across the board and it's hard to find a logical reason for it, given the rabid fervour on here when describing it as TGG. Without naming names of clubs, it is illogical that some owners can't see the benefit of fans and attracting more......the 2018 SL champions attracted on average 2,000 fewer fans to games than the previous year....15% drop. "FANS" need to stop whining and get back to attending games and owners need to make attracting fans their #1 priority.

The second issue is harder to fix, because self preservation rules the corridors of Red Hall. 25,400 tickets were available for Saturday's game......51,408 was the average weekend attendance in SL........how flippin' hard is it to get half your weekly fan-base to an afternoon game? Pound shop pricing at the end only devalues the event....the minute the series was announced the aim should have been to sell out all three games and Hull was the perfect choice for game 1 as they usually turn up......12 SL clubs, each getting 2k tickets to sell, or 10 clubs less London and Catalan getting 2,500 each......it really in't rocket surgery