Same old heroic loss from England. I've been watching these games for thirty years and we are no nearer than ever. There is always an excuse but bottom line not good enough.

Morley,peacock too old,chase too kiwi,wilkin and jjb to not international class.

Not good enough again.

Chase went to pieces after his horrendous brain fart of kicking the ball to the aussies from a 20m tap.

I don't think i'd drop him from the 17 but he may have to make so with being an impact sub allowing the more structured Widdop to start either at 7 alongside Sinfield or (and I can't believe i'm going to say this) at 6 alongside Danny McGuire.

The idea was a good one though: it was a penalty. If he'd found touch then that would have shunted England further up the field for their set of six. His execution was what got him though, which was a shame as he'd been doing just fine up to that point. But he has the biggest step up to make given that he plays for Cas, has never played in a final before (or at Wembley) and has not had the advantage of months of bonding and other huggy stuff with the rest of the England squad.

to be fair, regarding the 20m kick, if it had found touch we would have had the ball in fairly decent position, it was just poorly executed, he did seem to cause problems for them at times with ball in hand which was good to see, but am glad tomkins showed his class on international stage, plus ryan hall's tries, magnificent efforts.

But there was no need to do it at that stage of the game.

My highlight was when Widdop planted a good few smackers on bog eyed bill (antony whatever your name is ) and he was kakking himsen . oh eye Sam was more or less un playable ...... we have 1 of the top 5 players in the world on our hands here , lets enjoy him while we still can !

the only change I would make next week is widdop in over chase, we have improvements to make but England can actually win this this year!

When will we ever learn in this country.
D's win games.

Defence and discipline.
Westwood, three penalties, two tries conceded from them.
Chase, a poor attempted kick from the twenty and an interception, two tries conceded from them.
Heighington horrible missed one on one tackle, try.

None of the above players were poor with ball in hand, but there are two sides to the game, and the D's were very poor.

True we didn't get the rub of the green from the officials, but take the above errors from our game and it would have been a win.

If we can learn our lessons we've got a chance in this tournament. It's the same old story every year of us getting excited but then falling to bits but I genuinely think we can make a real effort of winning this in the next 2 weeks.

Your spot on about our defence and discipline. Watching the game back somebody needs to give Ben westwoods head a shake. I love his will to win and aggression but his penalties were plain silly. As for our defence we need to get it tighter close to our line but for once I wasn't concerned about us being broke from deep every 2 mins.

Hopefully Tony Williams will be banned for the rest of the tournament also. He's a handful but he should have been sent off and a ban must be on it's way. As he didn't get sent off he should get an extra game IMO but I think we all know he'll just be missing the Welsh tie.

The scoreline flattered Australia. We gifted them some tries, which are areas for us to work on but there were some really bad calls that went against us and swayed the game in Australia's favour:

1). The high tackle - if that's not a red card, I don't know what is. A blatant swinging arm right on the chin. He should've gone with around half an hour of the game left.
2). The disallowed Briscoe try - a truly disgraceful refereeing decision. To have a turnaround of 12 point turnaround from 18-14 to 24-8 within the space of 2-3 minutes was too much for us to catch up on. It changed the game big time and whilst we made some brain farts (Westwood and Chase the main culprits), those refereeing decisions were inexcusable.

Overall, I'm satisfied as I think there's still improvement in us and we showed enough with the ball to challenge. Tomkins was fantastic, he really linked with the halves well. If that's the best Australia have got, then I'm confident we can beat them should we meet them in the final. There's nothing for us to fear based on the two games I've seen from them.

I'd just love a chance against them in the final. They look beatable and I've struggled to ever believe that in the past. The last 4 nations final against them over here saw Slater and Inglis winning the contest for them and if we can get a repeat one is out and the other doesn't look fully fit.

We'd have to play at the very top of our game and they obviously have other match winners like Lockyer, Thurston, Smith etc but so do we with stunning players like Tomkins, Roby and Graham.

Let's get past the Kiwi's and get 40,000 people on at Elland Road and make it uncomfortable for them.

For me going forwards more or less everyone looked good. Defensively there were acouple of players whose defensive was a worry. Reed was woeful. he just kept shooting out the line. I'm not a fan of changing everything off one game but reed needs a talking to. If he stops shooting out the line we would be alot harder to break down.

Chase needs to be more clinical. Nothing wrong with the idea but he's got to challenge the FB and get close to touch. Our kicking game was ok but we let the aussies go with random ineffectual kicks from more or less everyone who kicked the ball yesterday and then again from stupid penalties giving australia the feild position they could not manufacture themselves from the forwards.

Penalties and poor kicks stopped us killing the aussies in the first half. Poor defence and the ref stopped us getting back level in the second half. Thats four things we cancontrol three of them and steve mac can influence the fourth.

I'd go same again next week dependant on injuries. but reed and chase need to shape up a bit in certain aspects.

I thought that we put up a great fight, we got absolutely screwed by the ref on several occasions (I went mental when that briscoe's try wasnt given, was right in the corner where I was sat an even all te Aussies around us went sheepish!)

Chase did nothing again, too many brainfarts for this level. I'd have widdop in next week, all the Aussies couldn't believe he wasn't starting.

Nothing else has changed from wha I said before the game though, carvel should have been on the bench ahead of wilkin and widdop somewhere in the halves.

I would have loved to have seen this side with the addition of Burgess + Joel though, our backs looked good yesterday(Tomkins, briscoe's + hall were all fantastic) but our pack fell away towards the end.

Graham and Tomkins definately caught the eye of all te nrl followers though, Tomkins for just being unplayable and graham for just taking up hit after hit. I think the comments started about 10 minutes in when he took the ball up a couple of time in one set.

Great day though, Wales were unlucky not to grab a couple of deserved tries in the early game, and dudson showed again there's some talent there. Some nothing from flower again though!

It boils down to one thing - composure. The Aussies were more clinical and took every opportunity that we gave them. We had more than enough possession and territory to put more points on the board and couldn't do it for one reason or another. Watching the game back the pass to Tom Briscoe before his disallowed try was a mile forward so it shouldn't have counted anyway. Should have been an Aus scrum instead of a penalty, that's all. You have to take any opportunity you get if you're going to beat the best. The Australians do, that's why they're currently the best

The loss of Graham and Ellis was massive for us. Them two get thru a ton of work and are leaders.


I thought chase made some silly mistakes but threw some top class passes that no other England player can do. He's got that something about him that no other English player has and for that reason I'd pick him next week.

Sam tomkins was class, we need to put the ball in his hands more as he's our most dangerous player.

I think reed has issues with his positional play in defence and I feel the Aussies knew this.