England lost.

To me, you've just shown pictures of it going over !

And on the full video, the reaction of Lomax and Graham vs the reaction of Proctor(I think it is) says it all.

Well indeed. Same old story from hysterical RL fans.

That's a relief, I've just been tilting my screen about to see if the lighting was somehow distorting the view I had.

Maybe when we were 5 out with 5 to go and 1 pt behind we should have dropped one over.

As it is its not in our hands any more

Bennett was spot on in his post-match comments when he said we need to learn to win,and if he can teach England that, then that's all we can ask. He didn't tell Burgess to throw that pass between his legs, he didn't tell Sarginson not to pass. The players need to step up and take some responsibility and if they're not performing under pressure, then we ditch them and find players who will. They had 15 minutes to do something after Johnsons's drop goal but failed miserably. Really wanted to see Hodgson with more of the ball in his hands on Saturday - was having a decent game until he went off, then when he cam back on he didn't see any of the ball...

The neglect of Hodgson was a major factor contributing to England's defeat. Hodgson is a match winner.

Ironically, going for the win, instead of trying to drop a goal to go level, cost us the game.
We should have set ourselves for an "easy" drop goal, no need for miracle passes.

But that had nothing to do with Hodgson? Just before Burgess threw that pass between his legs we were in a great position. Looked like Burgess called for it out wide which forced Widdop into the ruck to take the PTB. Watched it again last night, and still can't believe we didn't win.

The playmakers need to not be in awe of Graham and Burgess, and use them as decoys when they see fit. We will never score enough points if Burgess and Graham are attempting to set up plays.

Anybody else wish it was a tri nations and we were playing each other twice?

I want to watch more and more of what we saw on Saturday, not training hit outs like the Australians had on friday and us trying to run up a cricket score against the plastic Scotts to give us a chance in the last game.

Good point, many a Saints GF defeat owed something to the predictability of Graham invariably being the go-to man.

Definitely. I suspect one of the reasons for not doing so is the perceived difficulty in marketing two additional top-level tests. If - IF - England could be competitive, I think this would look after itself.

Plastic Scots? They may not be much of a RL nation, but the entire squad are all qualified by at least a Grand Parent. The same cannot be said of either NZ or Australia, so A little surprising you pick out Scotland for eligibility criticism.

RL as a sport has to decided it wants to grow the international game and so we have a four nations rather than a tri nations. Fact is a "plastic" nation are about as likely to beat England as England are Oz. Do you remember England playing the plastic Italians a couple of years ago? Incidentally that England team was a bit "plastic" with Rangi Chase playing.

Will Scotland beat England or NZ - highly unlikely, but they earned the right to play in the competition on the field, winning that right over France, Wales, Ireland and Italy. Now it could be argued that England will not gain anything from playing them and that is difficult to dispute, but the same logic says Australia will gain little from playing England.

Do we actually want an international game? If we do then games against Scotland, France, Wales, Ireland, PNG and the South Sea Islands are necessary. You would be correct in describing these nations as second tier RL nations, but plastic is unfair, inaccurate and a little bit offensive.

The game hardly exists in Scotland, except on Park Fields and School Campuses.

Same goes for all the other plastic international teams, except maybe Wales.

RL is a Sydney, PNG, South Sea Island,M62, West Cumbria and a small area of France based sport. Let's get real.

What makes it worse is the NZ public don't really give 2 hoots about the sport neither. All their best players have to play in a competition out of their country.

If anything, Hodgson over played his role. You could see Luke Gale was a bit frustrated at times.

Thought exactly the same.

Nonsense. I have a died-in-the-wool All Blacks fan as a friend and though she prefers Unon she is allso passionate about the Kiwis RL side.

Haven't had chance to watch the game back yet, but on the day I thought T.Burgess was better than G.Burgess, and felt Cooper didn't really play his weight, seemed to get dominated when they ran at him, and didn't get through many tackles for a back rower. Agree with what's already been said with regards to Lomax, Sarginson, Gale and Bateman not being good enough. Although I agree he is grossly over-hyped. Surprised no one has mentioned Widdop's goal kicking, which kept us in the game. We weren't clinical enough if the first half but I can't believe we didn't go for the drop goal when we had the chance. I think we were well capable of knocking over the drop goal, driving up to the sticks and taking another. 6, 7 and 9 should be taking control there, not the forwards. I would go full strength against Scotland so we can rack up the biggest possible score to give ourselves a chance of making the final:

1. Sarginson - Lomax flashy but not tough enough yet IMO. Sarginson will get through a load of carries and won't fall off tackles so easily.
2. McGillvary - Awesome v NZ.
3. Watkins - Don't see what he did wrong v NZ, though he is generally over-hyped.
4. Percival - Sarginson isn't a centre IMO. Considered Bateman for his defence/niggle but I doubt he would give Hall quality ball either. Give Percival a chance.
5. Hall - Very good as always at this level.
6. Williams - I was disappointed with how quiet Gale was, and in a game where we had so much field position but failed to score that's pretty damning. Let's see if Williams can pose more of a threat.
7. Widdop - Was in two minds about whether he should have been picked but his goal kicking and NRL experience makes him a better option that Gale IMO.
8. Graham - Think he went well overall. As mentioned, others need to step up and take weight off him and S.Burgess.
9. Hodgson - I tend to overlook the contribution of hookers for some reason but don't recall him doing much wrong, and he got through plenty in defence.
10. T.Burgess - Seems to be getting criticised but I actually thought he went well tbh. Needs to be involved a bit more.
11. S.Burgess - Looked like he was trying to do too much as already mentioned but he did help the cause.
12. Whitehead - Not brilliant in attack but got through a lot in defence.
13. Hill - Went well, no issues. Just got him at loose as a third prop who is mobile in defence.

14. G.Burgess - Got knocked about a bit but seen enough from him in the past to know I'd want him in there.
15. Clark - Don't recall much either way from him. Can't have been on long.....?
16. Farrell - Bateman was disappointing. He has had some cracking battles with Peacock so not sure it is a size thing. Farrell has gone fairly well an international level before and had a cracking GF so deserves a run. Knows how to find a clean break too which could be big in a tight game, particularly if he's coming on fresh against tired forwards.
17. Taylor - Haven't seen it back but on the day Cooper looked too easily dominated IMO. Taylor should have been in there in the first place after his game against France, and still should be. Don't leave him on too long because I don't think he would cope with the speed, but a couple of 10 min cameos giving Graham a rest could be very effective if we keep the ball most of the time.

I thought Cooper was more effective going forward than Sam Burgess.

Sarginson and Watkins were both hopeless.
Watkins has to be the most over hyped players at this level ever.
Is he related to Leon or Karl Pryce?

I meant defensively to be honest. For one I recall the NZ number 13 going straight over the top of him at one stage and nearly scoring but for Lomax zipping in and wrapping the ball up. I seem to be in the minority with regards to Cooper so may change my mind after I've watched it back.

Watkins made 28 tackles in the match, missing 1. Only the starting forwards had more defending to do than he did. By comparison Sarginson made 11 tackles (also missing 1).
Watkins was only given the ball 9 times.

Do you think by any chance, that these two factors might combine to show a) Why he didn't have the biggest impact on the game offensively, and b) That he was far from hopeless as the (apparently) vastly superior NZ centre came at him all game and didn't get past him.

This witch hunt on Watkins is ridiculous.

Not according to Leeds fans. He's just hard done by

On threads like these absolutely. Minds were made up before the game that he wasn't going to do anything of value and it seems plenty are delighted that he didn't have the chance to show his footwork.

If you move away from biased opinion (biased in both directions) and look at simple, indisputable facts then I think it becomes absolutely evident that the scorn being directed at him is unjust.

He made 28 tackles. 28. TWENTY EIGHT. With just one miss - so his defensive deficiencies are clearly vastly overstated.

A centre shouldn't have to deal with that sort of defensive workload - the other centres completed 9, 10 and 11.

Do you think that you can maybe take your blinkers off for long enough to recognise that that is going to impact on the offensive side of his performance?