Didn't expect to win but wasn't happy with some of the decisions. At this level we shouldn't have to be talking about the ref and his handling of the game. I agree with the previous posters who say we should have a neutral one, after all this is the international stage. There were times when it was like superleague and the ref only watching one side. Their points mostly came from our mistakes or the ref's dubious decisions. Don't blame Briscoe alone he couldn't do much when he only got the ball once in attack. I think N.Zealand have got it nailed, c'mon Kearney's boys.

1. Brett Stewart
2. David Williams
3. Justin Hodges
4. Mark Gasnier
5. Darious Boyd
6. Todd Carney
7. Mitchell Pearce
8. Matthew Scott
9. Michael Ennis
10. Jason King
11. Nathan Hindmarsh
12. Neville Costigan (think he's calling himself an Aussie these days)
13. Greg Bird

These would be my reserve Aussie reserve 13 based on players that are not involved in this 4 nations. I haven't included Inglis and Thurstan as they would of been involved but for injury. I think it demonstrates how far behind we are.

Stating the obvious but sadly we are now very much second division at international level.

NZ have just 1 professional team but a full squad - except Thomas L - who play in the NRL.

None of the many Aussies currently playing in SL - even Mark O'Meley and Michael Dobson - would get anywhere near the Green and Gold squad.

We can't even sustain a 14 club team SL competition without porous 'quotas' and 'exemptions' for Harlequins Catalalan and Celtic Crusaders.

In truth I don't think we supporters really care about England/GB so long as our particular club remains competitive in SL.

Looking forward to next season, of course I am.

Which adds fuel to my genuine belief that the international game would benefit from the return of the tours surrounding a 3-game series. I think we'd get better crowds with more fan interest, something driving the clubs to improve their players still further, and the opportunity for them to with non-international players gaining experience playing against the best players in the world. It would certainly be better than these repeated attempts at 4-nations tournaments trying to pretend there are more than 2 decent sides in the world.

Lets face it, we could name an oz 13 who play over here that would probably beat us

The biggest factor was the amount of mistakes we made, you can't give the aussies that amount of possession and expect to stop them scoring tries. They move the ball better than us and have a higher skill factor. The biggest difference for me is the backs, they could name three different versions of 1-7 that would be better than ours plus they play at a higher level week in/out than we do and also play SOO which means that can handles big games and pressure.

The difference generally is in the heads of the players and coaches. The Aussies make our guys look and sound thick. Yes the players are well coached but they're infinitely more capable of understanding and carrying out the coaches instruction. The coaches as evidenced by our "young english" group over here are also light years ahead of our guys in terms of the ability to communicate their message and to manage/inspire their players. We can be as fast , as fit and probably as skillfull but we have signally failed to match the Aussies in intelligence at all levels in the game.

We can match the Aussies in the forwards, but our halves are abysmal and the threequarters, as evident this morning, are criminally poor.

I have a look on a Broncos message board now and then and even all the Aussies are spewing at the ref.
Some pretty detailed break downs of the errors. Video ref comes in for some serious criticism as well.
They ain't happy with their team either. I thought NZ would win it before the tournament, I'm convinced now.

scrap international rugby league! The game is a f00kin farce!!!

Every match in the NRL is a battle and (normal) a very close run thing. Times that by 10 for SOO. For our best players I'd say about 25% of their matches really push them personally, both physically and mentally. They are less prepared of dealing with it especaially when the matches are hyped up and the pressure increases.

Soon, if not already, we'll go out for the national anthems already beaten. I think the pundits think that too as when Phil C was pleased that we'd "had a good 10mins" ie: completed our sets and not made an error in that time. If thats the best we can hope for we are doomed.

I know some people on here don't like the idea of it, but we are going to have to get some proper coaches in at all levels and construct a working successful model of training and development for players from the roots upwards. I'm afraid these will have to come from Australia. I don't feel we have anyone anywhere near the level needed to do this.

It has worked in other sports in the past such as swimming and cycling with some success copied from AIS models (oz institute of sport). We followed this in sports where the aussies were world beaters and matched and then overtook them. I know its slightly different as both swimming and cycling are sports that can be controlled easily and progress measured more acurately but results shouldn't be any different.

and how many called for senior and gleeson and co to be binned huh?? oh how we miss the likes of them thats for sure

that comment is a farce

not been funny but weve been beaten a hell lot more then that in the past but at leaste when you look at this squad it was very young and with the other young players comingh through in super league there is hope. obviously theres a few things like the diffrence in quality from super league to nrl, week in week out the nrl is tough and is a high tempo game played at a toatally diffrent speed. this is a huge thing i want to see improve is the speed of the game. we need faster/cleaner ptb and we need teams like salford,quins ect to be far more competitive which were getting there but it takes time. again the quota players needs to be reduced more quality then quantity 3 quality quota players each club. more emphasis on bringing through young players, look at the championships aswell some very good young players there that should be playing super league players such as mcnally, g moore, d jones ect.

we need to play more international games throughout the year not just 1 game mid season then a few at end of season, also then it will give teams like wales,france, samoa, tonga and fiji ect more games against the top teams.