a rather enjoyable evening watching Oz in the second half




Sorry, are you actually English?

To be fair to Hall he kopt a couple of knees to the chin after the high shot, he did well to hold the ball at all. The other decisions were baffling to say the least, they were at least 40 points better than us.

The only way we will beat the Aussies is if we can find and develop more local talent. The current size of the superleague competition is not big enough to do this. The Aussies could put out three teams that would beat us,shame but true we will always be second best.

Kevin Sinfield, the worst stand off in international rugby. Say no more ! I saw comparisons of him and Tommy Lee for us last season. 100% clueless

My thoughts on the game (apart from being gutted):

The English pack were fantastic.
The English backs were 'average'
The English half-backs were woeful.
The English kicking game was dreadful.
The Aussies had no weaknesses!

Having said all that - if Gareth catches that ball and we score 6, we're right back in it! Gareth drops the ball - opportunity & game lost!

Chase was dreadful and clearly raised his game to play against his 'home' nation. Sinfield was a shadow of the player we saw at Hull and his kicking game went to pieces.

I don't know if it was the 3rd game running scenario, but there was no rythm at all to our play and I suspect that the game plan was overly conservative - 'no mistake' rugby, which means when you make mistakes, as we did regularly, you have no where to go!

The pairing of Yeaman and Briscoe were asleep for most of the game!

Genuinely believe we 'CAN' beat them, but not playing like that.

TBF - I don't think anyone should underestimate the desire of the Aussie's not not to let Lockyer down on his last appearance - that would mean a lot to them!

Oh well, I suppose it means I'm guaranteed to go next time as, having seen us lose on so many occassions, I couldn't bear to miss the one time we do end up winning!

We did fail miserably in total not just the half backs, the Aussies are pure class. They have set the standard for all. What a great send off for a great Aussie player Darren Lockyer the king of half backs.

I was privelidged to be there to see Lockyers last game and kick Gutted about the result but you can not argue about who were the better team irrespective of the odd dubious decision (back to the drawing board again... I must have said that for around 30 years every time we play the Aussies )

Just wish I'd had the chance to see the game wether we were crap or not. Got in my seat in the West Stand at 5.15, keeled over in agony at 5.30 and at 6pm was in an ambulance from the ground to Jimmy's.

Turns out I've got kidney stones, not sure what is the most painful, the kidney stones or the defeat. £40 for the ticket and saw sweet FA.

Well same old again on the penalty tey Hall still had control of the ball and it was disslodged by the aussie players knee as he went to ground it.Penalty for the head high by Thurston on report or send off.To award a penalty try meant that Thurston should have been sent off as intent to tackle head high was found.Sinfield is not and never will be an international class stand off.As for Chase well he aint worthy of seven as proven by not being in the Kiwi side.As the Aussie players in the English side same as Chase.Morley past his prime Peacock a good club player but not international standard and past his prime.The only ones of this squad that would get a look in from now would be Westwood,Graham,Roby,Hall and Tomkins.It shows how far behind we are when Roby makes a break and spends what looks like an eternity looking for a player backing up.I never rated Ellery Handley as a great creative player but what made him stand out from the rest in this country was he was always in support of the man with the ball.No matter who made the break they would know he was with them.Thats one area we need to improve do as they do back up in numbers.Another is we wont get any nearer playing it down the middle all the time this was shown at Wembly when the ball was thrown about and they were troubled then we reverted to type driving it up the middle.I think Brough out on that field would have raised his game and gave them something to think about.It needs a big shake up and having Macbanana as coach wont help.

Being realistic, how would you rate our performance in the comp, bearing in mind that we started as 3rd favourites and finished second.
Aussie could have won by 40, however a feature of each of Englands 3 matches against Aussie (twice) and the Kiwis, was the refs reluctance to pinish deliberate high shots.
I agree that we were miles behind the winners, but it would have been a whole lot closer had we used SL refs.
7 1/2 out of 10 for me.

through and through mate but I can appreciate a good side

having been following the lad now for the last 5 years in junior rugby I can see that the problem lies beneath the professional game in the youth.
the quality is just not there in volume

believe me it hurt to lose again

Further to that, apart from a 10-15 minute spell when England put them under decent pressure, they spent most of the game cruising; they always looked like they had extra gears but didn't really need them.