I agree.

As for Mcguire, I felt sorry for him - its awful to see a player so bereft of confidence. Anyone who's played sport at a decent level will tell you how horrible that feels.

I'll feel sorrier for us if he plays next weekend and is as inept in defence as he was last weekend.

I agree that Sam did stand a bit wide in the first half, but it was the Kev and Danny show, he didn't even get looked at in the first half.

I agree with both these comments and pretty much said the same thing to my mate who I took along for his first taste of live Rugby League for over twenty years. I thought the withdrawal of Maguire and the introduction of Eastmond allowed Tomkins and England some real freedom of expression.

On a slightly different note I thought Eorl Crabtree was excellent when he came on and deserves another run out next week.

He was a bit hesitant, but he was also staying on the left because clearly that's where TS had told him to stay, and the few times the ball was passed left from dummy half it was to Graham or Ellis (and you could count on one hand the number of times it went left in the first 25 minutes). One particularly baffling time the play did 'decide' to go left, Danny McGuire went with it missing out Sam completely (almost like he was ignoring him) and yet again leaving a big big ass hole on the right hand side.


The play shape was supposed to be
[code
<ROBY>

<SAM> <MCGUIRE> <SMITH> <BRISCOE>
<SINFIELD>

And for most of the first half the play either went right straight away and the play shape turned into


<ROBY>

<SAM> <MCGUIRE> <SMITH> <BRISCOE>
<SINFIELD>[/code

Personally thought Danny was out his depth on saturday. Thought young guns Eastmond and Tomkins played well and as mentioned Crabtree played very well gaining the hard yards.


Who was that Aussie prop with the blonde hair who took it up all night. (Yes that does sound rude) He had a stormer.

Hannant? looks like a bit fatter version of Jammer?

Hannant - 78m (10 carries), 37 tackles
Graham - 151m (16 carries), 27 tackles

I agree, Sam was clearly under instructions particularly in the first half, at HT I said to my mates that Sam needed to ignore TS and go in search of the ball. Roby seemed to predominantly distribute to our right side also.

I agree with the comment about Tomkins looking nervous at the start, but that is also probably to do with him being starved of the ball. He touched it about twice in the first half i recall, so undoubtedly was nervously waiting to get involved.

think the Tomkins and Eastmond combo really started to cause them problems towards the end, it was a real shame that it only got going with 15 mins left after McGuire went off. had they played the whole 2nd half there, perhaps it could have been a different story.

at the end of the day, Tomkins and Eastmond have to play together on Saturday - although I suspect that Myler will get the nod again, and Eastmond will be playing at centre or on the bench.

again, maybe a proscribed tactic from TS to attack their left hand side and attempt to tire out Inglis and make him less effective in attack.

Or maybe a plan by TS to enable him to shoehorn Myler in against the Kiwis. :sarcasm:

The baffling thing is that on paper Australia's right side defence is weaker than it's left (just like ours), and again on paper Hall > Shenton > Tomkins looked a better strike threat.

Tactically it looks like a poor decision to throw 90% of the traffic to our right.

Watmough, Lockyer and Thurston were their 'weakest links' in defence we should have ran at them all day and when we had the ball on the last kick it dead so Aus had a 25yard tap taking away Slaters kick return like Gold Coast did against Melbourne in 2009 taking Slater out of the game.

I you watch the game we could have made loads more yards if we would have offloaded and whipped it out wide because the defensinve line shoots up in the middle (sort of an opposite umberella defence) and because we were playing one up rugby they smothered us up all day. These simple things should have been picked up in the first 10mins and changed the attack plan.

Next week against the kiwis our markers must do the tackling to stop momentum of the kiwis especially Moimoi.

First marker must sprint at whoever is taking a drive and stop all momentum, if we let them run at us they will destroy us.

Long kicks on the 4th to tire their forwards aswell as plenty offloads in the tackle.

Inside runners but used as dummies untill the time is right when the kiwis are tired, bring Burgess and Crabtree on and start giving those inside balls with Briscoe backing up.

Thinking about it now it would be a good idead to play Sinfield at 9 to be able to kick from dummy half making more yards and more yards for the kiwi pack to chase back.

Could think of loads more but don't want to bore anyone.

Regards Wayne Bennett