Defence is not only about making your one on one tackles, which he generally does really well. Him and Chase have regularly read plays wrong and as a defensive pairing have been pretty poor IMO, not just in the Aus game but against France and Wales too.

Apart from the injuries, I think SM will stick with a very similar team. I just hope he doesn't take a gamble on a half-fit player. England can definately do this, but they need 17 fit and firing.

You could swap Chase for McGuire, maybe Yeaman for Ablett, and Heighington hasn't been brilliant. But I'd go for continuity.

Why don't you talk about all the individual mistakes made by the players? Or is it just Yeaman/Briscoe you sit there sock in hand with?

The problem with Yeamo's performance in the Eng vs Aus game was that he's playing outside of Rangi Chase who is unpredictable and you could see that they don't normally play together. All Yeamo has to do is stay back a bit then he can run onto the ball better or have an option of coming on the inside.

IMO he was also well watched by the Aussie's and wrapped up in the tackle.

If he can get the timing right with a nice hand off he can give us all a big smile at the KC and get the knockers to swallow their words.

Now there's a mental image I could have done without.

you can say atkins is overated but hes as good as yeaman or reed and ablett isnt even a centre who would get found out playing there at international level

your problem is chase, not yeaman, imo chase is a poor defender, like most scrum halves and stand offs, most teams target them on the pitch to run at, a few times over the last couple of england games chase has left yeaman exposed and left a gap moses would have been proud of parting!

Disagree, he'd get ripped apart in the NRL - something Reed has more than coped with.

baring the last couple of games, so was yeaman, yet yeaman had been consistant throughout the season

for one you dont know atkins would get ripped apart and two how many nrl games has reed played

i know like i say i was defending yeaman i thought he had a decent game on saturday

saying that, atkins had a stinker against us on easter monday, is atkins in the squad?