Lots of huffing and puffing but the final killer move was missing. We should have been way ahead by half time if possession, position and pressure had counted!

I agree with most of this - Lomax didn't impress me against France but apart from that one tackle he did well this game. His effort to ground that ball first was heroic! Sarginson kept trying to dummy and go himself (and getting nowhere) when Hall had space outside him, it was so frustrating...

The atmosphere was absolutely dead yesterday .. And I can't see it being much better at Coventry or Olympic park.. If we want intense atmospheres we should be kicking off around 6 pm on a Saturday and playing at the likes of Wigan,Hull or perhaps Bolton.

It's possibly the brand of rugby that's served up these days. It's too structured. Ok that's the way you win games but it's not entertaining especially when you're losing.

You can pick problems with individual players e.g. I thought Gale's kicks on the last were hopeless. Big high balls much too far downfield and easily taken. Sarginson produced nothing. But overall we looked like amateurs playing professionals tbh. The best part of our game was the enthusiasm and work rate that we produced, but it was insufficient to bridge the gap in quality.

I understand your comments WO, but we did only lose by a point and I didn't think there was that much in it.

I think part of the reason the atmosphere at England games is so ordinary is we don't play enough games. There's no supporters club or whatever, there's not really any songs, because it just doesn't happen regularly enough.

I think there was much in it. We hit nz with everything for 20 mins solid but couldn't break them down. Nz played half the game with one back who ran the show.
If there wasn't much in it...you'd expect the team with one back to get beat.

Not much in it at all and you have to remember they scored from an interception. The NZ defence was superb and way above Super League standard. Even Daryl Clark couldn't find a gap (despite being built up by the commentary team).

Intercept or not. It's often confidence in your defence and dominance that allows a player a player to push out to gain from the attacking teams inability to crack the line and forcing them to pass flat, sloppy and without vision.

Nothing on it....what? No way is that good enough to trouble Oz. Even with a narrow win, I'd say disappointing when they operated with just one hb.

What doesn't help grow the international scene, is when the crowd at HKR are more interested booing as loud as they can whenever Walker touched the ball, rather than getting behind a British team against the convicts... Absolutely pathetic.

What a bunch of brainless idiots that club is. I'm made up they went down. What a horrible, grotty little club.

There was only one thing separating the quality of the teams IMO and that was Mr Shaun Johnson. He is a very special player and he ended sets so well (he ended pretty much every single one of their sets, nobody else got a look-in for them as they aren't good enough to do what he can), his short kicking game is the best i have ever seen.

Other than that i thought our front row of Graham Hodgson and Hill were better than their's, i thought our wingers looked equally as good as their's, we just ended sets poorly at times.

Exactly right.

I had a look recently and in cricket, football and rugby union they'd played 114, 114 and 112 tests/games in the last 10 years and we've played 71.

In the decade before that was a lot less because we missed out on a World Cup in 2004/05 so there was nothing to get behind at all then.

If a World Cup is abroad we've gone 2 years without playing a home international fixture at times, or maybe at a stretch one in two years.

Albeit cricket and RU have centrally funded contracts, and play internationals at the same time as the league schedule is still running - will SL clubs or their supporters go for that idea?

Meanwhile you can't really compare football's international structure with that of RL in terms of the opportunity of fixtures - there's 209 teams in the FIFA rankings, whilst just a paltry 36 in the RLIF list.

In respect of international games RU is light years ahead of League ,helped firstly by the four nations ,five nations & more recently six nations annual competitions which are all virtually home internationals. Add to that the superior publicity enjoyed by the RFU & the fact that all these countries have thriving domestic competitions & it is easy to see why international rugby union thrives. You can also add to that with international based club competitions that breed rivalry for when the countries come together on the international scene.
Can Scotland RL even get a game in Scotland ? I don't think even William Wallace thought it worth going to East Hull on a dark October night when he was marching south.