Bateman took a bang to the head early doors and probably wasn't right afterwards. Would go some way to explaining a below par performance. Size is not an issue with him much as it wasn't with Billy McGinty all those years ago.

dont think he was poor thought both packs negated each other with some very good defense

First comment I have is regarding the Burgess twins. They simply make too many basic errors at this level. When a game is going to be as tight as Test matches should be their ability to lose focus and poor ball retention will always kill us. It was the same in the World Cup Semi.

Sarg was woeful needs dropping. Bateman unfortunately is nullified at this level in the pack due to the size and strength of the opposition. Percivall for me is also too lightweight for this level so I would like to see Bateman playing centre.

Apart from the interception I thought Widdop played reasonably well and Gale did ok too, however I think we missed a trick not playing Williams who is a more natural runner and takes on the line which could have been crucial as the big Kiwi's tired.

Had we had a Newlove or Senior out there we would have been out of sight by half-time , sadly what we have is nowhere near that quality

We lost too much intensity when Graham and Hill went off, Gale was ineffectual and Sarginson bombed two tries.

Overall kicking game was poor - too many kicks to their full back and they were allowed to lie on way too much in the tackle, I have never seen second rows take so long to get off the grounded player.

The game was there to be won as I did not think NZ were that good (certainly nowhere need as good as previous NZ teams) but we just lacked that final composure to close the game out and made too many basic errors at key times. Play like that against Australia and they will wipe the floor with us.

Bennett needs to shake the mentality that just cos you ply your trade in the NRL, doesn’t automatically make you the best player in that position. Diabolical that the current MOS, Lance Todd and Harry Sunderland trophy winners weren’t on the pitch on Saturday.

His comments pre game were pretty alarming, he said he is expecting the NRL players to all lead the SL players, can some explain to me how any of the Burgess' or Cooper or Whitehead or Widdop or even Hodgeson are better leaders than Chris Hill? Or arguably Luke Gale?

His arrogance knows no bounds. He'd pick 17 NRL-based English players if he could even if SL ones are better. Sarge will be in the team now until he retreats back to SL.

Did he say that?

That is extremely alarming. As you point out how can young lads teach a stunning player like Chris Hill any lessons regardless of the league they play in? There are a number of reasons why Hill, Roby, Hall, Lockers etc haven't gone over to the NRL over the years and it isn't because they're not good enough (very far from it).

You can only hope that sort of comment has been mid interpreted.

I took the comment as more a mentality and approach to games in the NRL. Bare in mind we are playing the best players from the NRL, Bennet to me was saying that we need to be more consistent and play for 80 minutes, that the England players playing in the NRL can bring some of that mentality and approach to the team and the others followed that lead. It wasn't anything sinister, well that's how I took those comments.

I went over to the game at the weekend. I'm not sure what I expected but saw no discernible improvement from Steve McNamara's tenure. I also took exception to the remark by Bennett that the players need to learn to win. Well, someone ought to have pointed out to him that England defeated NZ only last year. It seemed to me that Bennett was getting in an excuse.

The game was pretty boring. England's Plan A consisted of - Five drives and a kick followed by Plan B - Five drives and a kick and if that didn't work revert to Plan A. If Brian Noble had come out with that game plan he'd have been laughed out of town as being too old fashioned.

The team was crying out for some imagination. Widdop and Gale are too similar to play together. We saw nothing of Gale. It desperately needed Williams or Brown to offer something different.

Sarginson seemed to be picked on the back of a match winning GF performance at FULL BACK! Percival is far and away the best English centre and can consider himself unlucky not to be picked ahead of both Sarge and the useless Watkins.

Lockers was badly missed. I'm afraid from what I have seen Burgess, once you have stripped away the hype, is just not in the same class as Lockers (but then I'm biased).

To beat the Aussies - Graham and Hill to do more game time. Brown or Williams in the halves. Get rid of Watkins. Clark to get more game time. Even then I'm not confident.

A lack of skill and execution under pressure is the problem, not necessarily imagination, imo. Now if the players Bennett picks don't perform I hope he'll be quick to wield the axe. His problem is that England lacks a world-class 6 and 7 and currently he's trying to find the right pairing while still trying to win a tournament.

He's spot on when he says we need to learn to win - we had numerous opportunities to win on Saturday and failed to execute. I would lay the bulk of the blame at the feet of the players rather than Bennett.

The Kiwis sent over an extremely weak squad for last year's test series so you can't read anything into that. In fact, we still struggled to beat them and the rugby on offer during that series was dull as dishwater. The game at Olympic Stadium was one of the worst matches I've ever seen.

Extremely weak squad is way wide of the mark imo. They were missing Tamaulolo, obviously a big miss but we were missing Sam and George Burgess in the pack so that evens it out.... basically we are talking Shaun Johnson, who is a huge player for them and the difference. Rest of that team is very similar to the one that took the park at the weekend. That team also has RTS in it -

FB 1 Roger Tuivasa-Sheck
RW 2 Jason Nightingale
RC 3 Jordan Kahu
LC 4 Dean Whare
LW 5 Shaun Kenny-Dowall
FE 6 Peta Hiku
HB 7 Tuimoala Lolohea
PR 8 Jesse Bromwich
HK 9 Issac Luke (Captain)
PR 10 Sam Moa
SR 11 Kevin Proctor
SR 12 Tohu Harris
LK 13 Adam Blair (Captain)
Substitutions:
BE 14 Kodi Nikorima
BE 15 Martin Taupau
BE 16 Ben Matulino
BE 17 Sio Siua Taukeiaho
Coach:
Stephen Kearney

And Whare, for me certainly one of the best centres in the world.

Teams are always going to be missing players in the end of year internationals. You only need to look at our season to see how lucky England and New Zealand are that they had as many fit players to choose from this year and last.

That was a strong NZ side last year and we did well to beat it. It's an even stronger NZ side this year and we came up short by a point in a game we should have won. I certainly wouldn't use that as a way of talking down last years series win.

For how dissapointing last week was I take comfort in the fact that it's another international against Oz or NZ that we've competed in until the last minute. It's a long while since either of them blew us away and that wasn't always the case! We've progressed as a side and will hopefully continue to do so. If we can keep sticking in games against those two we'll win one of the big trophies before long.