Sinfield didn't kick well but Australia didn't let him. Sinfield had 2-3 defenders up to him everytime he kicked, in comparison Lockyer and Thurston had acres of space, with the defence on the back foot, and could pick there place easily.

Spot on this. Sinny not up to his usual impeccable standards tonight, but virtually the whole team looked off the pace they set earlier in the comp.....or maybe the Aussies just stepped up a gear or two.

I think they showed last night how far ahead of us they are in quality terms - as with the Packers it is great to see how the best play the game. They do the simple basic stuff so well the second man attacking plays are so precise it is a joy to watch - we looked like a cat in the headlights every time they put that play on.

The Aussies were simply too quick too strong and too good - they made players like Tomkins look distinctly average and the less said about Briscoe the better. Hopefully this will put an end to the Chase experiment he was atrocious. Bring on Lomax and Gaskill stick with them and they will deliver long term.

On the England front Sinfield played as well as he was allowed he didn't kick well but that was to be expected this isn't SL.

I agree with all of the above.

I'd also start to look at bringning in younger replacements for Morley who has looked a shadow of his fomer self this tournament and perhaps even Peacock.

Sal /G agree completely once they went through the gears we had no answers.
G spot on RE-JP and Moz but i do fear they'll both be "available" until they are 50 and doubt the coach has the nadgers to drop either.
I do think with Reed ,Hall ,Roby and at time Tomkins we have some real international potential just not enough yet.

thought Sinny went ok last night didn't have the best of kicking games but as has been said he was always under pressure from their defence. Note the difference when the aussie player kicked he nearly always had at least two players blocking the england defence giving them that vital few seconds of time to pick the spot. On the attacking front we were one dimensional and had no second phase and the playmakers did not have the runners coming at speed or angles the aussies ran.

Perhaps a game too far.

We were beaten up front in the forwards with only Graham and JJB getting anywhere near their normal form. The pack provided little effective go forward enabling the convicts to close down Sinfield when kicking which meant he was having to kick in poor areas and under pressure.

When on attack Sinfield was at 7 putting the ball into the scrum and it was Chase that produced nothing when in the SO position while it was Sinfield's pass that created our try. I couldn't understand why the coach didn`t alter this and get Sinfield back to 6 when on attack and also bring on Widdop at fullback and move Tomkins up to 7.

The whole team looked tired and lacked energy and they exposed our weak left wing defence.

I thought JJB tried his best and did not look out of place at this level. He was blamed on Sky for his pass that Briscoe dropped when in fact JJB clearly indicated with his hand behind his back his intention to pass that way. Brisco was asleep for most of the game and it was no coincidence that he was also not aware/ready for Hall's pass either.

Well written Sal. At last we find ourselves in some agreement on this thread.

My only reservation is over Lomax and Gaskell. They definitely have tons of exciting potential and will be helped by having the benefit of growing together as a club pairing. I hope they can step up in a way that no GB/England half-back partnership has for so long, but this remains to be seen.
This will not be entirely in their own hands though. Unless and until we get a pack that can compete consistently with the Aussies, the ability of the halves to shine at the top level will always be in question.

I fear we'll never compete consistently with the Aussies when our top players play 10-15 games a season more albeit in an all-round less competitive competition.
It's a double whammy, less time to prepare in the off season when all the strength & conditioning work is done & fewer games that are truly hard & challenging.
But that will never change with a 27 game regular season plus cup games & internationals.

Gaskill has sublime skills he glides around the pitch - for me he is the most exciting half back to emerge in many years - will he fulfil his potential - let's hope so.

Don't forget the top Aussies play 3 SOO games and the Anzac tests - do our players really play 10 games a year more than the Aussies?

Sky have certain favourites who are beyond criticism - Tomkins is one and Briscoe is another O'Loughlin is another. Briscoe just wasn't at the races his awareness was none existent - harsh to say it but I am not sure he had the heart for it last night. The fact Simon Mannering was able to give him 10 metres start and easily catch him suggests he needs to work on his basic speed.

Think I refered to this on another thread, in fairness to Sky it's not just them building up Tomkins. However I have never understood the hype reguarding Briscoe, especially when I get to see Ryan Hall play week in week out. Don't get me wrong Briscoe is a good winger, but you'd think he's Martin Offiah the way certain members of the Sky team talk about him.

Admittedly I don't see him play week in week out....but I must agree I have not seen anything that impresses. He apparently has not got scintillating exceptional pace nor has he got Hall-like finishing qualities....BJB also got the better of him in a tight situation with a fabulous finish earlier in the season.

Saints fan in 'Tomkins is rubbish - let's bring in Gaskill and Lomax' shocker!

England totally bottled it.They should have been 4 tries down at half time and we'd be looking at a similiar/worse final scoreline to 2004.

I say bottled because they were making basic errors throughout the game. As soon as they got within 30 metres of the aussie try line it was complete panic stations with headless chicken running, bizzare wild passes and no set plays.

It's a step back from the final of 2009 where they actually should have been 12-0 up inside 20 minutes and gave it a real good crack, with a younger team.

Australia battered england in the forwards.

We'll topple them one day I just don't know when.

It was evident from the very start that Sinfields kicking game was going to be neutralized, I dont think I've seen an attacking kicker been targeted so much. That along with been torn apart in the ruck just destroyed England early on. It made England lose all game plan and reverted back to the England of old with churning out sets using the forwards instead of being the 2011 expansive England. For me the game was lost in the first 20, they had a massive grip and were not gonna let go.

I think when Cronk came on just before the hour mark there was a well conceived plan to start spreading the ball. It was a lovely simple plan and it pains me to say a joy to watch...I am only relieved that Billy Slater was not out there to cause havoc in those last 20 minutes.

The Aussies, in time honoured fashion, won the game in the first 60 and scored the points in the last 20. England had very little left in the tank by the final quarter. Villifying certain players is all very well, but I think that was reasonably close to the best team available, and in cases where I could have found a place for a different player, it'd be lunacy to believe they would have seriously changed the way the game went.

I actually think we are improving. This year's tournament has seen us carry more threat in shirts 1-5 than I've seen from GB/England in a while. I think we need a couple of players, specifically a really good half back and another centre. We have places they might come from as some youngsters develop.

The positions we were really seriously out-classed in were 6 and 7. That's not a criticism of Sinfield and Chase, but you look at the quality of Lockyer and Thurston and we just can't compete with that. They're probably the best half back combination I've seen having watched RL for the past 22 years. The glimmer of consolation is that while the Aussies will inevitably find another top quality 6, he is very unlikely to be in the same class as Lockyer. He'll probably still be better than what wer have available though.

I'm not so sure about that. Don't get me wrong they were outclassed in the half backs but the main area was the forwards imo. England were meant to be the strongest in the forwards but lost the collision and the ruck big time. Cameron Smith was living the dream with the amount of space he had out of dummy half. Sam Thaiday was uncontrollable and put our forwards on their backsides on numerous occasions. The positive from Englands pov is that Burgess was injured and he will be a major addition next year.
Its time for JP and Mozza to retire from international RL imo. Peacock offered very little in this series and needs to focus on club rugby to prolong his career. Graham was by far the pack leader and will only get better in the NRL.

Careful, promoting such views on here is akin to heresy.

I look forward to Peacock playing statues as Paul Gallen jinks past his creaking frame in 2013.

Sinfield was an easy target for a committed defence purely because he's not mobile enough to sidestep a tackler flying out of the line, then to accelerate into the resulting space. I was surprised this wasn't done to greater effect in the first game. Then I decided they'd been much cleverer by not doing so until it was too late for us to come up with a plan B. As another poster pointed out, our pack was better in the first game but I think that's only half the story.

The Australians always neutralise our long kicking game by sitting the full back and usually a winger very, very deep on the last tackle, so long kicks often reach them on the full, and in any event they don't have to go back and then turn round before starting their kick return. They've been doing it for years. A few high risk plays with a short chip over the top into the space they've left might be worth a try, although obviously if it goes wrong you turn the ball over further up the field. I'm surprised we haven't at least tried it more often over the past few years. If nothing else, it might lure the full back a little higher up the pitch and create some space behind them to kick into.

Yep, we end up kicking down the throats of the Aussie back three who then run the ball back and the Aussies finish their set on our 40m line or thereabouts allowing them to put in an attacking kick. Mixing up our kicks with a few chips is a worthwhile gamble given we'd end up under pressure anyway.

Whatever kick we put in though its quality depends on how much time the kicker has. Playing behind our pack with our slow PTBs means the Aussie defensive line is in the kickers face and that causes poorer kicks.

A better kicking game would come if we could dominate in the forwards. Something we've struggled to do versus Australia.

Agreed. I was watching one of Leeds recent GF wins again the other day, when we kicked particularly well, you could see that all the best kicks came from a half break or a quick PTB with a retreating defence, while Leeds made Sean Long kick badly by being right in his face last tackle.
I also think that at international level you need at least 3 quality kicking options, ideally one of those from dummy half and one with a decent left foot so you can add uncertainty to the defence.