We lost because of our inability to change things. Once the Aussies brought Hunt on and moved Smith to 13 they grabbed the initiative. We should have countered this by taking O'Loughlin off and putting a prop at 13, brought Clark back on and just probed behind the ruck.
Sarginson was the only Wigan player to have a decent game. Smith was average and Tomkins, Charnley, Lockers & Farrell were very poor.
Shame we don't have a decent back up at FB because the golden boy has been woeful in this series.

Joel, Ferres and Farell are all bang average. Whitehead had a fantastic season yet is no where to be seen yet.

Back row was tripe really and how Whitehead hasn't featured is a bad indictment on McNamara. Despite that England were better than Australia and should have won. A combination of poor game management and a shift in the way the game was refereed in the second half did for us in the end. The video referee ruling that 'the ball was rising as Hall touched it' is undoubtedly a biased work of fiction but we bring it on ourselves by simply agreeing to the farcical setup of being refereed by Australians against Australia.

I'm somewhat annoyed by o loughlin too.
Not fit. Barely played any mins. Gave away dumb pens. As captain needs to be honest. Upto coach really but he ain't upto it. See how much rotation back row got? More than front row yet they all do 80 or near for clubs. Front rows did massive mins especially graham

Imo we have the best available squad in the tournament,but one of the worst coaches in the sport,as you say whitehead has been a standout all season yet our useless coach cant see it.This is a tournament that we will never have a better chance of winning.Mcnamara makes radford look like the mastercoach wayne bennett.

Agree with all of this. First half we played some decent rugby, throwing it around on the back of a decent go forward.

Whatever McNamara said at half time seemed to act as though he'd placed sleeping pils in the drinks. We went ultra conservative, Agar like, 5 drives and a kick, even kicking to touch like we were trying to see out time with the lead we had.

For my money McNamara is damaged goods. Cut from the same cloth as previous generations of GB players who are mentally scarred by Kangaroo's hidings of the past.

We will never have a better chance of beating an Aussie team on home soil and he bombed it because he didn't have the belief that his players could have ran them over and put 30 points on them. If we'd carried on as we did first half I think we'd have crushed them. Instead he seems to love playing the unlucky losers tag over the VR decsion. Wish Hall had got nowhere near it so he couldn't focus on that.

If we lose next week he should walk the plank.

Just watched the Greg Inglis drag into touch on Clark, I thought he should have got 10 minutes for this as it stopped a try scoring opportunity, as none of the Aussies were back to defend, albeit we scored through kallum Watkins in that set, but it just shows they get away with cheating.

Hodgson offered nothing whatsoever. Shame because he's a good hooker in some areas.

Charnley isn't good enough either. Only Hall and Graham really caught the eye. Graham ran himself into the ground today. One of the worlds best forwards.

McNamara is fecking clueless. That Aus team weren't as good as Samoa was last week. NZ will destroy us.

Cronk could have played in his suit , He had all the time in the world to place his kicks were Smiths were rushed . Our right side defense also looked shakey when anybody ran at it .

And smith got hit with a few late shots after kicks as well which the ref never even batted a eyelid at, we should put Cronkite under the same pressure although I've no doubt we would of got penalised for it.

Watched the game twice over. An each time i've watched it, it's just a load of rubbish.

First half we played well, chucked the ball around an ran some good lines. Australia couldn't cope. We should have been at least 3 tries up come half time.
Second half it seemed we were defending the lead. Australia stepped up a gear and we left it until 5 mins before end to get into second gear.

Hodgson i feel shouldn't play against the Kiwi's. He's not a scapegoat but just feel he needs a year in NRL before being considered again. O'loughlin needs to go bye bye. Yes he's good but he's a has bin. Other players need a wake up call also.
But we need a coach who will pick players on form and not by name or club. McNamara isn't good enough at all, even Agar as a coach would of but 30 on the aussies today.

We had the better halves. Cronk was non-existent and Cherry-Evans was doing his best impression of a Whitby crab.

We lacked belief today, that should come from the coach.

Just one point. How the hell does Joel Tomkins get into the England starting 17. I know he plays for Wigan, I know he scored a long distance try in a Challenge Cup final, I know he is a dual code international, but he is so average he gives average a bad name.