I think there are a lot of very harsh comments on here. We are all well aware of the error count, if we do the same next week it will be a real struggle against Tonga, the same in the final and we’ll loose by plenty.

There were a lot of positives in that game though. PNG were never a threat, I don’t think we were ever at risk of loosing which given the completion rate has to been seen as a positive.

The real key is do we have a composed and relatively error free performance in us when it matters.

More than ever in terms of skill, strength, size and speed I believe we are a match for Australia the difference in mental. Do we have the belief and concentration level to put in an 80 minute performance? That bit I’m not sure of.

Brown Gale and Hodgson are not a match for Cronk Morgan and Smith, by a long long shot!

When Bennett does his analysis of the game he'll be thinking why did our right edge come up with 4 tries and our left edge only 2. Well Wayne that's what happens when you play without recognised specialists in their right position. Its noticeable that the two tries on the left were created by Widdop and not Bateman who should be nowhere near the team.

It annoyed me the BBC pundits banging on about "we must cut out those errors against Australia"; I don't think that performance today would beat Tonga. We had easy forward dominance (but we'll be coming up against the best forward in the world next week), and yet still made a sackful of errors. Widdop looked all class again at full-back, and McGillvary was very good too, but still a very disappointing showing.

As for the much-criticised Gale and Bateman: I've always been of the view with Gale, give him a few more games to settle himself in, but now I am starting to wonder whether he does have it in him to be a top-class international half. I'm not saying he can't do it, or that he should be dropped at this late stage, but he has these two (hopefully!) games left in which it prove himself. To his credit, the one thing he didn't do was "go missing", he wanted the ball and saw plenty of it, but was sacked far too often, especially on that break with Bateman and Hall well-placed outside him. Bateman: another so-so game, appeared to make decent metres as usual. When he did provide Hall with a decent pass, he dropped a sitter. Roby v Hodgson: I did mention Hodgson's kicking game out of dummy half, and it won us an early 40/20, but Roby was again much more effective.

The Tonga coach will be thinking, we can beat this lot.

Indeed, you have to feel sorry for Ryan Hall, he's hardly getting a sniff in offence.
Bateman just isn't a centre and never will be.

Their Australian counterparts are without doubt better players. The biggest single reason for this is their ability to perform when it matters. They make the right decisions and come up with far fewer errors.

This is a mental thing. Our players have a very good skill set and are fantastic athletes, we need to learn to stay composed and maintain concentration for 80 mins. IF we can do that we have every chance

whitehead has been the invisible man!

but even this super star sam burgess has not had a decent game for england since the last world cup

3 or 4 players can hold there head high right now.. they rest need to up their game asap

then again...we are still on track and still in with a chance of being world champs!

He should be nowhere near the centre. He's eating up the ground like a good back rower should and is so much more comfortable defending further in.

To be fair if you dropped those three into any of the teams in the QFs they wouldn't be far off wining the whole competition

There were some very good individual performance. Mcgillvary was excellent again and linked up nicely with Watkins. Roby looked superb again when he came on. Widdop and O'Loughlin also were good. I don't know why there were so many simple errors today - maybe just a bit of complacency causing a lack of concentration at times. We defended well though and I never felt worried about the result. Hopefully we'll have enough to beat Tonga next week. Then we'll have to try and put together a one off great game to have any chance of beating Australia in the final. We need something like what NZ did in the 2008 final.

Burgess hasn't been the same since his return from Yawnion. In fact the error rate of all 3 brothers is horrendous and has certainly cost Souths a fair few games recently. None of them seem able to hold on to the ball, and when they do they often go for the offload that isn't on.

I'm starting to wonder if Sam's errors cost the team more than he offers. He's such a great player it's maddening to watch.

That sort of error and completion rate against Samoa or Australia will kill us. As Noble said, do it boring at times. Execution and possession.

I think having Sam Burgess at second row is also stopping Hall getting quality chances, that pass that ended up in touch would probably have gone to Hall's hands if it was Currie or SO'L, at second row (or Ward, Ferres or Farrell for that matter).

Also our halves seem much more willing miss pass behind Whitehead than Burgess, although that is not his fault.

Yeah, if it wasn't for Sam Burgess we'd win this world cup.

now where have I heard that before......

With Jermaine McGillvary doing the business for his club for many years and now looking the part at international level, it's time for him to dump the Giants and make the step up to a Big Club.

On the downside:

Completion rate was terrible. If we do the same again we'll get smashed by Tonga, let alone Australia. Bennett has noted mistakes as England's achilles heel and he's right. They are awful, unforced errors.

Bateman is so far from being a centre its not funny. Its not his fault but he has no idea how to set up Hall, and that long break in the first half would have led to a try if he'd been a centre as well - he should have seen that Mead was trying to crowd Gale and got closer to him to leave the short pass on. Instead he stayed wide leaving Gale with a far riskier pass to make. For once Gale made the right decision. Percival for me.

Gale offers too little - he seems to have no idea when to run and when to pass unless its a planned move. Personally I'd move Hodgson to 7 and play Roby.

We sometimes move the ball crisply but Laurie Daley doubts our attack would cause Australia much trouble because its a bit one-dimensional - which I agree with. We need some alternative plays close to the line - particularly inside balls. We are trying to move the ball wide too often off a very slow PTB and stack one side or other with halfbacks meaning its obvious which way the ball is going and the defence is already set.

Pluses:

Our wingers look good as did Watkins. If we cut the errors out we can beat Tonga, who Lebanon showed up pretty badly I thought. We need to copy Lebanon's plan of moving the big Tongans around all game. Lebanon did it without being high risk as well - just players making themselves available to take a pass. Tonga were literally shot with 15 minutes to go against Lebanon.

It's interesting how one of Bennett's key things as a coach is not making mistakes and unforced errors yet we seem to be making more since he took over.

We had the highest completion rate in the tournament before the PNG game. It was at 80%.

I can't imagine Bennett will dump Gale and play Hodgson in the halves now, unless Brown is unfit. I just re-watched the game on the Aussie coverage, and Daley is right; most of the tries we scored, we would not have scored against the Kangaroos. He still gave us more chance than the rest of the panel, though!

There's a difference between errors and unforced errors even if the completion rate is higher than others which it should always be in top 3 given our standing and NZ have disappointed.

What Daley was saying is that our one move near the line is the block play - a dummy running second row, halfbacks combine and hope to create an overlap through the dummy runner. Trouble is because its basically the only move we have a good defence will just slide along with the ball. He added that we also telegraph which direction we are going every play because we stack one side or other with halfbacks/Widdopp and it always goes that way, and we try the same move off slow PTBs, which makes it even easier to defend.

Whilst Roby hasn't snuck through from acting half, we need a bit more of that plus trying short passes from the PTB. I'd also like to see us give the ball to the dummy running second row more often. Basically we need variety but in a controlled way. Trobule is when we go for variety we tend to make mistakes.

I'd compare the way we are attacking with how the Cowboys play off Thruston. Structurally it looks similar to the way England are set up, but the difference is the defence knows that not only does he have 3/4 options - long pass, short pass, kick or dummy and run - but he will also at some stage use every one of them.

I think the direct route has a lot of merit, particularly later in the game when bodies and minds start to get tired. Graham took a one-out pass at speed and was over the line v PNG, pulled back for a forward pass. It has worked in wins against the aussies in the past as well (Peacock '06, Sculthorpe '01).

Obviously it can't be our only weapon, but I don't think it should be disgarded for more complicated high risk plays. Even if it doesn't work, you will generally keep the ball, and force them to defend around the ruck rather than quickly sliding out. You can often win an interference penalty in that situation as well if you are a metre short of the line fighting for a quick ptb. However, I'm not sure about the scoot. I can't remember the last time I saw anyone score that way (unless Wigan are just rubbish at it!) and it means you lose your hooker for the next play.

I wonder if our playmakers have the brains to compute more than one option, especially against a quicker defence. SL defences don't demand the attackers to have finely honed split second decision making so when it's needed it's not ready. Hence we are predictable.

I agree more variety is needed. Roby has shown how to choose the right option at the PTB whereas Hodgson seems not to be on the same wavelength as anyone else and it leads to hesitancy and errors.

Daley's completely right about our predictability.

The Bronocs attack was criticised for the same reason this year. To be fair I think Bennett believes that if you execute well enough you will score. We'll see.

Bullseye - agree about our halfbacks being a problem here. Widdopp aside, they simply aren't used to having to make decisions under constant pressure. As a result when they do try to play 'off the cuff' they tend to force the pass and make errors. Quite often when we have tried the direct route of a big forward running at the line the pass they've got has been really hard to take. One of the Aussie commentators mentioned that with a pass by Brown to Currie (v France?), and said the pass either needs to go early or the halfback actually let himself get hit and then drop the ball off. Instead it was a fast pass with defenders right in Currie's face - the drop would be recorded against Currie but it was Brown's fault.

Re the dummy half scott, I don't expect Roby to score, but going for it every now and then at least keeps defenders close to the PTB. What we haven't been able to do, either off a scoot or other plays is generate quick PTB on the line. Australia are far better at doing that - just as they are far better at slowing down the opposition PTB.