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 ?

Officiating of todays game - poor,biased and disgraceful, and yes I did watch it and couldnt help feeling we had NO chance, as even if we looked like getting close, the Ref and or VR could be relied on to ensure their precious 'Green & Gold' were helped all they could.
Some of the decisions were SO bad it was laughable and frankly brings into question the viability of Internationals with non neutral officials.
If we ever have to play Aus in Aus again, I say we grow some, and tell them that without a neutral - get stuffed, the lets see how the International scene develops then....

We can`t blaim refs decisions, end of the day we havn`t got a strong enough squad. As i said scrap the england team.

I actually did laugh uncontrollably at just how far forward that pass was. It was even funnier knowing that we got pulled back for something that was 50/50 ( in fact more like 60/40 in favour of backwards) and then I realized that I what i was laughing at and stopped very suddenly.

It was a disgrace

because he was the worst of the back line....again.

Like one of the abpve posters have said, against SL etams Wire can make up for his mistakes, at this level no team can. It wasnt an anti-wire post so no need to throw the toys out of the pram

He was awful last week but Cudjoe was worse today as was S. Tomkins.

Again it would be ahrd to single out bad players. It is easier to say who did well.

Robinson
Graham
Westwood
Roby
were all great.

Looking back at last year's Tri Nations game versus the Aussies, Steve Ganson reffed and I'm sure that we insisted on his appointment against the wishes of the Australian management...