I know Tom and he;s a sound lad - an ultimate pro who respects everyone around him and himself - never out on the p**s or getting into any scrapes - for me he would get into the team for his attitude as much as his talent

Correct. Can't tell a thing from this game. Is Sinfield an international captain? Is Charnley better than Briscoe? Are England ready for the World Cup? The answers will still not be known after this game.

Only Wales will get something out of this game and that is how far they are behind England.

A well publicised game at Headingley today would have attracted a 10k + crowd (new pitch permitting of course) more than the joke that's currently on at Wrexham. Will the RFL never learn

we should be doing better than we are dont think england will do owt with this clown as coach

Embarrassing.

Can anybody tell me how that is supposed to engender any respect and credibility for the game of RL?

After some fantastic SL matches in the run up to the GF that fiasco....I'm lost for words. World paper thin Cup here we come.

sorry but this is international rugby league not a mess about (even if it was wales today). being a 'sound lad' should have nothing to do with selection, its all about skill, especially when our talent pool is so small.

We at least seem to finally have a full set of 5 exciting backs of Tomkins - Charnley - Watkins - Reed - Hall.
With Hardaker, Atkins, Briscoe as options too we're much healthier there than for a very long time.

are you sure you have been watching the right fella Luke burgess has done nothing but impress me this season. he has been very consistant and pushing with sam for one of the best forwards at the rabbits

I agree wales arent up to much at present, but we (england) have had our fair share of drubbings against the better sides, the likes of wales, france etc need to be playing the best sides to get better imo.

TBF to steve mc i couldnt argue with his selection except i probably would have started abbo at left centre, and had luke burgess on the bench

I thought alot of the side showed up well, i thought the right hand side of KW and JC was better than the left, sinny led the team well, myler showed some good touches. I really like Mickey mc's agressive style similar in some ways to issac luke. considering we dont have atkins, sam burgess, westwood, mags, roby id say we are still a fair way off but we are in a healthier postion than we have been for along time

Finally in the backs we appear to have more talent than we have had in a long time, and was nice to see the young players from the different teams all getting along. Zac did well and at least offers competition for tomkins.

It is hard to judge however against such poor competition. People go on about the step up in competition playing internationally, but this series is a big step down from SL level. At least it's a Bonding excersize for the players.

It is a bit embarrassing on Bbc1 to have that poor a crowd. Not very well promoted by the RFL

Someone on the VT mentioned we turned down NZ offer of a tour, which for me is a stupid decision to take.

Not if you cannot afford to fund it

Doesn't fill me with confidence that we cannot afford to take a team to NZ.

Really pleased to see Watkins getting a crack at international level, I really think he's a star in the making.

He's just like Luke without the talent. Luke doesn't look like a dick either. Otherwise a doppelganger.

Match pics here [urlhttp://gcsports.zenfolio.com/[/url

Yesterday got me thinking about the state of British hookers

I realise this is England and not GB but remember not too long ago GB having Cunningham, Lowes and Newton to pick from in that position

There is no one remotely close to that standard playing now it seems to me

Where has British hooking gone wrong?

One of the highlights for me yesterday was Hock losing it when the Welsh guy gave him a little nudge at the PTB, the best part was Ryan Hall's face in the background with a huge grin.
I think we all know what he was thinking & he wasn't the only one.
We were leading by a shedload of points at the time, it could only happen to Hock.

Classic Hock !

Going to have to pull you up on that point...

Well, what did I learn on Saturday?

1) I will watch pretty much any RL if it's on normal telly.

2) Wales aren't good enough to provide anything other than an opposed training session.

3) It was a good opportunity to get some new combinations of players having a run out together.

4) There looked (and I know it's hard to tell from the outside) to be a more collegiate attitude to the squad than we've seen for a while. That, more than anything, is going to be the key to any chance we have of doing well next year. We know the Aussies and probably the Kiwis are going to be stronger on paper, so our only chance is to turn up with some of the team ethic that Leeds tend to show in September and October, everyone pulling together, watching each other's backs and totally committing to the same cause.

I did like the look of the Watkins-Charnley pairing. Hard to read too much into a match against poor opposition, but they seemed to have some understanding. I think I'd like to give that more game time before the World Cup. Both are, I believe, only going to be better this time next year.

Even against that opposition I still can't quite see Richie Myler as a very top class half back. I thought Ratchford looked the better player at Salford, haven't changed my mind. He's good, don't get me wrong I'm not going in for this exaggerated "he's crap" guff you get from rival fans, but I can't see him as an England regular.


Thinking about giving certain combinations game time, how many warm-up matches do we get ahead of the World Cup? I think we could do with at least 2, with a full squad to choose from, to get the combinations right.

Our approach to the World Cup has to be the David Brailsford small margins approach. We know where the Aussies are, we know what we've got at our disposal to take them on with, if we're going to have a chance we have to make sure we are able to get the absolute maximum out of the players available.

I watched it for 20 mins when I was at the gym. It was right in front of me on the wall. That's the only reason I saw any of that pointless fixture.

I'm struggling to ever think of an international player looking as much of a tit as McIlorum did. I assume he still thinks he is strutting around for Queens trying to impress birds on the touchline. If he had the talent he could let that do the talking. But he doesn't.

I get the impression England have worked hard on the technical aspects around the ruck, especially defence, but also on the psychological side. To such an extent that they seem unable to spin the ball out to the 3/4s at speed. We have some of the best back combinations I can remember, half backs excluded, but they don't seem to be clinical enough to match AUs/NZ at this stage.

I think Myler improved hugely this season after his injury, but still looked average. Brough is the only scrum half approaching the required standard, assuming Burrow is in there as a 9.

Tomkins
Charnley
Watkins
Reed
Hall
Sinfield
Chase
S Burgess
Roby
Peacock (persuade him out of retirement)
Westwood
Ellis
O'loughlin

Graham
Hock
Widdop
G Burgess

rest of squad
Hardaker, T Briscoe, Ablett, Burrow, Mcllorum, Crabtree, Farrell