Obviously his achilles' heel based on his last two matches. Hope the Leeds coaching staff have taken due note for season 2012. Practice those high kicks Sinfield.

From hero to zero. How cruel is this sport. His confidence was noticably shattered. Good Aussie coaching really: has to be admired.

He needs to work on catching the high ball and not go swanning off to play in pointless rugby union games! (allegedly)

nobody in the world would have caught that

Not the first time he's dropped those types of kicks and will not be the last. But I've never really rated him at FB, cant catch those kicks under pressure and dosent run the ball back enough, gives it to richards which is strange for a man everyone says is Englands spark and can Make something happen. Although when he does run it back he can make something happen which is why its a shame he dosent do it more.

Uncatchable my foot, it was a good kick, and there was [ressure but through my slightly blue and amber tinted spectacles I can proudly say, Ryan Hall would have caught that.

his confidence looked shot for a while IMHO after the first bomb he dropped

but going to union will mean more high balls

Billy Slater with his fecked collar bone would have still caught it

Tomkins against the Aussies showed he was nothing more than average which is why I cant see them queueing up for him in the NRL , Yawnion yes

His body language tells you when hes going to drop a high bomb he simply looked scared because he knew there was aussies near by

Average? Take those blue and amber tinted glasses off. Tomkins is an outstanding player. Those high kicks were superb with a mean kick chase. Paul Wellens twitter: "filthy kick. That would have moved heaps.

Tomkins does look good against teams over here but get in with the big boys and he does not shine. Paul wellens said that ? Oh well must be right then I mean he has never come up short in big games has he

He wasn't allowed to shine, nobody was. Tomkins has had a fine campaign none of the less. I hated the lad but he is the best talent England has.

I'd certainly take Wellens word over an armchair pundit!

As ever in RL, the game is won or lost up front. The English pack didn't contain their opposites, leaving the backs with little room to work with. We still lack enough world class players to comepte in the serious games. Tomkins is easily Englands best full-back, regardless of what I think of him as a Leeds fan.
Credit to McNamara for bringing the team together (not seen an England camp so close for a long time) but, in order to build on this, we need a coach of proven pedigree.

Tomkins made a couple of errors, and I thought his confidence went a bit. He's a young lad, this sort of thing happens and he'll learn from it. He was still sensational at Wembley against the Aussies and remains our most exciting player, like him or not.

While I'm sure there are multiple witch-hunts on these boards at present, you can't single out individual players. As a collective England were better than last year, probably better than they've been for some time, but still not able to get the job done in a really big match against the Aussies.

Like MacNamara said, I see steps in the right direction, but that's all they are. Still a big gap to close, so let's continue this good work and not start declaring players past it and "average" just yet.

Tomkins is a fine player and had a good series overall. He was not the only player under par on Saturday when IMO only Graham and JJB hit form. The coach should have brought Widdop on at FB when it was obvious Tomkins was under pressure. Had Tomkins then replaced Chase at 7 he would have would have had extra motivation to prove himself and run at them more often.

Our whole team seemed to be nervous early on and the pack lacked that fire they showed in previous games and allowed themselves to be dominated. Once this happened there was only going to be one result.

haha comedy gold. Average? hes light years ahead of any Leeds player of the past 10 years and you would love him in your team

True. Just imagine all the titles we could have won.

It's alright. He's found some rubbish Aussies to play instead:

[urlhttp://www.wiganwarriors.com/WContent.aspx?id=6625&type=1[/url

Good for him. I hope he dazzles the RU crowd, shows how good our game is and returns to play RL successfully for plenty of years. A Barbarians game is made for a broken-field runner like him.

Yes, it will do him the world of good to find out he's good at RU and play in front of an 82,000 crowd for the biggest match-fee of his life, at the same time finding out that their Australians are *rubbish* compared to our Australians. Can't see how that would turn his head at all.

Do you really think he isn't aware of those facts already? Maybe this gets him the chance to play an international match in front of an 82,000 crowd, which he'll never get in RL in this country. If he gets that fix playing for the Barbarians every so often and stays in League, I'm all for it.

Doing well at a Barbarians exhibition and being good at RU are not entirely the same thing in any event.

I think it is a bit harsh to have a go at Tomkins when our half backs did nothing all game apart from the pass that put Hall in.
Our forwards whilst dominated by the Ausies did reasonably well.
Graham, Roby, Wilkin, JJB, and to a lesser extent JP and Westwood played ok for me.
Lockers and Thurston showed how it should be played and ran the show form start to finish.
Tomkins bombed a couple yes but he also took another high bomb pretty well.
Here at Leeds we have our very own Brent Webb who can do similar on a frequent basis.
Widdop to FB and Tomkins in the halves would have been my choice with 20 minutes to go. But then again I`m not the England coach.

He's not exactly weighed down with Grand final winners rings like most of our lads though is he? Have you ever heard the saying "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts" ? Have a think about it and then ask yourself would Danny mcguire, Rob Burrow, Kevin Sinfield, Ryan Bailey, JJB etc swap 5 winners rings for the privilege of having played with Ratboy. I'm just glad the Four Nations is over so I can get back to hating him with my original intensity. He was crap at Elland Road and there's no getting away from it.

As a person Tomkins has done and said very little to endear himself to anyone other than the most ardent Wigan fans and the Sky numpties. Personally I think he needs to grow up a lot. Maybe then (as with James Graham) I might be able to like him a bit more.

As a player though, he is by far the most exciting young British talent I have seen for many, many years. He is tough, fast and elusive. He plays way above his weight and his bravery and commitment defending his line are unquestionable. Of course there are aspects of his game that he will need to work on but I've yet to see a 'complete' player at his age.

The whole may be greater than the sum of its parts, but it helps if the parts are quality to start with.
The game-breaking moments in this year's GF for example were flashes of individual brilliance from Rob Burrow. These are the sort of flashes that the likes of Tomkins can (and frequently does) bring to the game. I'd have him as 'part' of our 'whole' any day of the week.

Actually he's been OK under the high ball all this season. Not the best, but certainly not a great worry. After dropping the first one in this big match it did dent his confidence. Although a few minutes later he did take a great one.

I agree this season he's been letting Richards and Charnley run it back a lot more than I'd like. I thought maybe he had a slight injury towards the end of the season but didn't hear anything about it, Maybe not. He should run it back as often as possible since that's his greatest strength.



Quite possibly. Who knows though. Ryan Hall has been absolutely outstanding in this 4 nations.

Tomkins weakness was exposed at the KC, he was lucky to get away with it then and his luck continued when tries were disallowed following further failures to diffuse kicks

A good coach spotted this weakness and exploited it, a bad coach allowed it to be exposed time and time again