both come of age tonight pleased to see them both from the start

they both deserve a crack at the Aussies

I think the good thing about both of them is that they can play better then they did tonight. I thought both looked dangerous in patches and as a partnership they're both that good they'll cause any defence problems.

I really hope they turn on the style next week. If both are on top of their games we stand a slim chance.

Both need to step it up next week IMO. Mind you, the whole team needs to go up a notch, especially in attack.

And it will be a slim chance. They will get less space against the aussies and no matter how well they play I just cant see us containing the Aussie back line.

hope I'm wrong

If we allow the aussies to dominate the flanks then I cam see us losing. Our forwards did well last night but the centres just aren't good enough, although they did a good job last night. I just hope we dont try and play flat next week because they Aussie defence will be tight and they'll force the errors.

I really hope we can cause a massive upset. I'm just hope danny maguire isn't picked because he is so overrated IMO

Tomkins

In the game at Wigan v the Aussies Tomkins beat two men and when being tackled passed out to Ellis who scored.
Eastmond sent a great long pass out to Smith who scored.
They've both shown what they can do and hopefully they'll both be selected for the final.
What a great International half back pairing this could be for England!

I think that they could go on to be an excellent HB pairing for England. And we will be lucky in the future to have Myler to step up aswell, in case of form or injuries.

kin Ell your easily pleased an offload and a long pass....!!!!!
Danny Brough can do that while supping neat whiskey from a tarts slipper and he's bobbins

If it's so easy I wonder why the rest of our International halfbacks can't do it?

Let's see you try it. Hmm?

That is one hell of a mystery.

both players have a lot of learning to do, and imo are a long way off being the finished half back articles.

Its encouraging though that Saints have Wheeler who is a classy standoff coming through and Wigan also have Mellors coming through.
Hopefully then England will have quite a bit of choice in the halves, especially with other good young kids at other sides.

We need however to ensure that the play the ball is kept relatively slow to prevent the dummy half scoot mentality that for me has hindered the development of Burrow and Mcguire.

The young halves need to learn how to organise and unlock a tough defence not merely run out from dummy half to exploit a gap.

Let's hope the coaches teach them this then.

Well it looks as though I have at least one who agrees with me.

Go on then mouth, why don't you go sidestep Lockyer?

While i don't want to see 3 or 4 scoots every set of 6 the current PTB is way too slow to allow much more than a 5 drive mentality. There is nothing wrong with having quicker PTB just look what Aus did on the back of that against England 10 days ago, cut us to pieces with few if any scoots.

Its a fine balance, if we stay as we are, given the leagues limited player pool and coaching talent (or lack of) the attack in SL will become flatter than ever as teams will be penalised for being set up deep by losing 15m going wide unless they make an elusive break - we don't have the risk takers in the game at the moment

While this may appeal to the rugby purist (though i think of myself a RL fan as much as Saints & i hated 2009 as a competition) it won't have a broad appeal to none rugby fans or the kids who could be our next Eastmond or Tomkins.

We need to find some way to keep pace in the game & reduce the scooting as it will in time increase the general skill level (admittedly i've no idea what) but if we don't speed up from 2009 we are in danger of creating a product damper than a haddocks bathing costume to anyone outside looking in & to some inside who will look out & unfortunately at the moment we don't have anywhere near enough fans to say we don't need them.

I couldn't agree more.

This slowing of the play the ball is killing us and not allowing any traditional rugby - it's just like running at a wall 5 times then kicking.

The game is still far faster than it was at the start of SL. Its just that people have become used to a form of tick RL where defenders had to treat the tackled player as some form of plague carrier.

Personally i think the problem in the uk is that teams are generally poor defensively, as a result teams have been able to get 60 yards purely by playing the ball quick and scooting from dummy half.

This has had the negative effect in that teams dont need to learn how to kick deep, nor do the half backs need to do much organising.

We have seen this in the 4 nations. The aussie players from the NRL are used to playing under tough defences were a strong kick and chase game is vital. As a result their kicking and organising game is far superior to the British.

Until defences in UK improve to the required standard, we therfore need to slow the play the balls down. This then means teams cant make 60 metres in a set of 6 by dummy half running, and instead have to be more creative and employ better long range kicking games.

One thing many Saints fans have been bemoaning is the lack of pacey flair backs in the side. This is understandable though as there is no need for pacey wingers if merely by running from dummy half you can get to within 30 yards of the opposition line. In such a scenario you just need big crash ball wingers to barge over from close range. Hence why we have Meli and Gardner.

A return to the days were sides need to fight for territory will i believe increase the importance of having fast backs as it wont be as easy to march down the field. As a result we are therefore likely to then see more long range trys that fans like.
This is certainly what has happened in Australia.

You really are a sad t!t aren't you.

I agree we do need better half backs, we do need to restrict scooting as an excuse for cheap yards and we do need to improve defence if we want to compete with Australia consistently

But by slowing the PTB too much, as much as it may improve attack in time it is dumbing down the defence required. Teams don't have to do as much skillful one on one tackling, there are always numbers in the tackle & there is always a good defensive line.

To get all teams to play against the current style of defence using skill, speed, creativity & risk taking rather than biff and barge is a long, long way off - there isn't the talent pool both playing or coaching for more than 3 or 4 teams at best.

The game is faster, the athletes are superior (if not as skillful) surely we can increase skill level without giving defenders a tea break after every tackle. Improve defensive line speed - that is were Australia kill us, despite quick PTB they are on us before the second receiver has the ball & our kicks are always pressured, yet their backs have the freedom of the pitch and their kickers have all the time in the world.

I don't want to get on to this again on this thread its not fair on two future gems - i thought both Sam and Kyle did great on Saturday they haven't had to run SL games on their own yet so i didn't expect them to run a do or die international against the World Champs.

Despite such inexperience, both showed they were fearless of the opposition and had the confidence to roll the dice, in doing so they had a hand in scoring or creating all of our tries.