I've left Cameron Smith on the bench and started Roby because I feel Roby just edged it. He played well in an average team performance and stood out along with Westwood, Graham and Burgess. Also Roby was brilliant defensivley.

Cameron Smith controlled the game well as he usual does and was key to Australlias yards forward. However, Roby edged it for me, as I say, stood out in a poor England performance.

This. Watched two junior games this morning, neither were up to much.

Think brilliaint is going a bit over the top imo but why does he feel the need to give away stupid penalities especially when England were playing well?As Clarkey said correctly they eventually scored from that brain fart.Not singling him out by the way as Burgess was just as bad with the dropped balls.

Because the Chairman of the RLIF is Colin Love........an Australian.

Everyone singles out players after defeats like this, usually with their club bias affecting their opinions. All the backs were terrible, Lockers is never a 6 and looked out of place and although Robinson had his moments he is average at this level and Tomkins did nothing. Goulding, Cudjoe, Atkins and Briscoe look way out of their depth at this level. IMO only Graham has performed well in both games. Others have had their moments but just not consistant enough. We made far too many errors in our own half, and thats what killed us.

Thought Atkins was awful again. Was good to see Harrison go well on his debut. Though your guy Westwood was in the top 3 today for us.

Am I the only person who thinks the criticism of the officials is OTT? I can only think of one decision that stands out as shockingly poor.

I wish some people would use their eyes and not their ears when watching to Sky Sports sometimes.

Looks like Atkins has alot of improving to do on the international scene. The most notible difference for me was in super league, Atkins has great leg drive and can break through tackles and get good metres forward. But against New Zealand and Australia he was struggling to do this.

Maybe it is OTT, but there is certainly far more than just one decision that was poor. The forward pass, the tap by Cam Smith, countless times in the ruck. He was far from consistant for both teams. But having said that it was our error count that killed us, we just kept gifting them possession.

thing is Atkins can knock on on his own line against any team he likes in Superleague on his own line, and the Wire defence will keep most teams out most of the time.....unfortunately time and time again we are shocked that gifting australia posession in this area leads to a try......
even
didnt matter that it was Atkins knocking on The Aussies would have still scored even if it was gleeson paul newlove or Jonathan davies at centre......

I think everyone was in agreement before a ball was passed that our back line was poor.......why single out Atkins....

or was it something to do with the fact that the messiah sam tomkins was ordinary as feck at both stand off and full back and a different scapegoat was needed.


on the cheating thing i was sickened long before eddie hemmings piped up after that ridiculous forward pass...so its either time to take the tests seriously and get some proper un biased referees or we may as well scrap international rugby league before it ends up like voting in the eurovision song contest

First post, so hello to everyone!

Not having the benefit of Sky, had to do with the highlights(?) on the beeb.

And I have to say the refereeing left a lot to be desired. England set off at a cracking pace, but couldn't seem to sustain it. Australia capitalised on every mistake.

Neil

Well your singling out Tomkins, is that because he plays for Wigan???

Seriously though, no player needs to be singled out as many of them have been poor. Atkins deserves his criticism as do many other England players, Tomkins included.

Lets not make excuses for this shambles.Not one player in the england team did them selfs any justice.It just shows how much the Sky team big up super league players.To make us believe theY are world class,but when it comes down to them proving it.They get found wanting time and time again.

Quote: Bondi_Warrior "Well your singling out Tomkins, is that because he plays for Wigan??? '" Apparently Wigan are the answqer to beating the Aussies: viewtopic.php?f=28&t=475446 deluded.

Quote: Bondi_Warrior "Well your singling out Tomkins, is that because he plays for Wigan??? '" Apparently Wigan are the answqer to beating the Aussies: viewtopic.php?f=28&t=475446 deluded.

We will never beat Australia with an England Squad, we need to revert back to Great Britain. With the injuries we had Briers would have done a lot better.
Why did they drop Widdop ?
Where was Ryan Hall ?