how does the rest of the tournament rack up? is tehre a chance we have to play one of the lesser nations like fiji, samoa or scotland ffs







i can see it now...

"england dumped by emerging scotland in world cup semi in brisbane"

jesus, can this really happen in this comp?

After reading all these replies to this thread........I thought i'd have my say.

The score was embarrasing, yes, but the Aussies were really fired up for their encounter with their (alleged) biggest threat to their title. The England team seemed as fired up as they was last week. I noticed then that when they scored against PNG their 'erm' celebrations were a tad lack-lustre to say the least, whereas the 'Guinnies' acted as though they had actually won the competition by scoring against 'the mighty English'.
Today was like stepping back in time to the early eighties.......The days of Mal Meninga, Eric Groth and our own Sterlo, the 'Invincibles' was a great name to give that Aussie team. (Hull being the only team to almost beat them too.....robbed by a dodgy ref call

). Well........England will need a bit more fire in their bellies to get a result against NZ next week, let alone facing the 'New Invincibles' again!

To sum it up in effort terms.......England 4 out of 10 (must try harder)
Australia 11 out of 10 (shear class)

On the Calderwood topic.......1 mistake (the same as Billy Slaters) but had a fine game and stood out along with Burrow IMHO. I'm actually starting to look forward to seeing him in FC colours next season

Another observation.........Scotland, Ireland and Wales RL are gonna do diddly-squat in the competition........And so now we have an England side that has lost a bit (allbeit a small bit) of dimension. I reckon a GB side would've maybe not conceeded so many points today.....Oh....And the GB kit was better to look at too, it didn't look like a badly drawn Rovers shirt



Thoughts.........?

Who exactly would have played from those teams?



That Irishman Pat Richards might have been in with a shout. Apart from that, I'm struggling to think of anyone who comes close...

Lee Briers & Danny Brough.

your right ,there dont seem as much pride in the england jersey ,as the GB one ,the players seem to die for the cause when playing for GB ,i think its a farce to revert back to england ,where just trying to put more teams in the cup to give it more credabilty ,tbh i think we will struggle to beat the kiwis next week a team we wooped a year ago,may be the aussys should play as new south wales and queensland ,i know its defeatest but the aussys are 25points better than anybody else at least

Maybe true Ash........But the shirts were better



Maybe I was talking 'past tense' (possibly future too!) but the likes of Brian Carney in his prime would have been a welcome addition in todays game. Also....Isn't Richard Horne a Scotland player ??? He played under Bomber didn't he? Does this mean that a fit Horney would not be able to play for England in future games???
The rest of the UK teams (inc Ire) will never do any good in a RL World Cup, we all know this, so I really cant see why the GB set-up has been 'retired' when it was actually and obviously a better option

Spot on that mate. I have been advocating that for ages. Viewers will think we have a game played by Neanderthals who can`t put a coherent sentence together. We need a different front man for the cameras.

You're right there Paul......If the 'New England set-up' meant that the team would have had to be totally decimated by being split up and had, say, to have a few Hull KR players(

) thrown in to make up a side, then it would never have happened

A GB side is a better option everytime. This way, we would have maybe got to see a Lebanon, a Russian and maybe even a Jap RL side have a crack. They would probably not have been hammered as England were today

Nick Fozzard?

Do you know what Phil i played land of hope and glory on my classical cd and it sounds fantastic.
I would DEFO have it for the national anthem

Shouldn`t have looked shattered he did sod all. At one point he was 3 metres nearer a loose ball than the Aussie and got bet to it.