He came on at 9 for the last 10 of first half and first 15 in second and thats when he was at his best, when he went to 7 he completely disappeared.

I'd go with Brown to partner Sam as i think thats the only option we really have. Robinson is a 9 thats were hes performed best over the last 6 month for Hudds. They did pretty well as a partnership in the first half and tbh we was set up quite well with the Widdop, Brown and Sam mixing it up a little and all being 1st, 2nd or 3rd reciever at different times, that along with O'Loughlin joining when needed.

Like i've said previously i think the only thing McNamara has to decide on is the bench. Obviously Roby or Robinson will start the other taking a place on the bench I'd start with Roby hes solid as a rock in defense which is needed at the start especially and his darting runs from the ruck will help get us early field position. Robinson can come on and hopefully exploit tiring big forwards in the middle.

The second spot I'd give to Fielden, you may say through club bias but its not at all he's an all round better prop than both Griffin and Crabtree just look at the stats on the superleague website he's miles ahead.

Then the difficult decision does he want 2 props on the bench then its a choice between Griffin Crabtree and possibly Westwood. Griffin is the same type of prop as Graham, Morley and Fielden they don't add great impact for short periods they work tirelessly throughout and for long periods. Another option is if he feels due to the size of our forwards we could go with Westwood as a Prop/Second row. The final option is Crabtree who adds that impact, I'd go with that as the other 3 props can easily cover the shorter periods Crabtree plays.

Then the final choice is between Westwood and J.Tomkins, this to me is very much a toss of a coin there that close. Westwood is solid without being spectacular and can cover Prop pretty well. Whereas, Tomkins has that extra bit of attacking play with his power and pace. The deciding factor for me would be how J.Tomkins could easily cover centre.

Therefore i'd go with a bench of .... Robinson Fielden Crabtree J.Tomkins

Sinfield is injured as well aint he ? Pretty sure hes having an operation over the off season. Agreed Gleeson should of gone but i don't think Shenton did too much wrong tbf.

I'd agree with most of that, although I thought Widdop disappeared in the 2nd half and Brown looked out of his depth for most of the game.

Also thought the officials were very poor indeed. Verging on biased in fact.

Clan do you not think robinson had a poor kicking game in the second half?

NZ Maori Vs England , Sounds like it was organised by rascists.

I've always said it, Shenton is overrated.

Brown was very poor and as I feared was out of his depth. Shenton is a player that does not impress me one bit. He is a big fish in a small pond at Cas and will be found out at Saints. Gleeson has been a far better player this season and our right side would have been much stronger if he had been selected. Hall should never have been picked in the first place for this game as he has been poor this season, as he was again in this game, and Goulding should take his place. Widdop just doesnt look ready at this level and imo his lack of top flight Rugby shows.

The worst aspect for me was the fact that this New Zealand Maori team was quite poor and we should have won easily, especially after having the bulk of territory and possession in the first half and winning 18-0 at half time. Our forwards which is supposedly our strong point should have completely dominated and didnt. I dont think jet lag is a factor either to simply explain that 2nd half, Australia and New Zealand come to England time and time again and never collapse in that way. The way we collapsed was reminiscent of the final last year when we were fantastic for 60 mins then got battered in the last 20 mins when we were dead on our feet. We should be stronger next week but there is an awful long way to go to match NZ and Australia.

I thought Widdop has a good game today when he playing full back

Same thoughts as you about Atkins. haven't watched him week in and out but in the games i have seen him, he seemed to be coming on well. However, after todays game he looks like a proper thicko. Took his try well but he'll get mashed against the Aussies and Kiwis if he doesn't get his positioning right.

You realise that we played with a prop interchange down for practically the entire game, right? And that we spent the majority of the second half defending?

The fact you said that made me stop reading, how could you say that? He was completely firm under the high balls, he was completely solid playing at FB, he can't do the support play yet, he doesn't know how each player does it, this is his first competitive game with any of these players, give the lad a chance.

Bet you weren't so smug at half time. I'm not saying this just because I took England. Thats my 10 quid beer money for Monday gone.

And your point is or do you think this somehow justifies it?

I thought our forwards were pretty poor. The Maori's looked a little smaller in the pack but had no fear from our forwards as the game went on. Crabtree put in a good hit after 75mins he needs to do this in his first spell. He needs to run with far more aggression.

The 2nd row worked hard but dropped a lot of ball.

Widdop played well and the centres were ok, Hall looked a bit slow when having to quickly turn and chase back, bt good in the air.

Roby played well and Robinson made some good runs. Brown was a bit annoymous but worth another go I think.

Doesn't look good though to me....

So a full back who cant do support play is ready for international RL?



He wasnt completely anything.I take it you are from the school of thought that he is a reserve player for a NRL club so he must be a world beater. I much prefer to judge a player on what I see and to me he doesnt look ready and doesnt yet look good enough. Tomkins has been twice the player at full back for Wigan this season.

I will give the lad a chance and it is not like I was calling for his head or anything. However he is playing in an international and I will judge him as any other player. He should not get any leeway just because McNamara has decided to pick him in an international match after 3 first grade games. It is also not his first competitive game with these players as he played against France in largely the same England team

Widdopwas poor in the 2nd half. His positional play was terrible. Not ready. Shows how desperate we are by selecting reserve players.

I didn’t notice this first time round so I have just watched the second half again

For the Maoris’ first try, Widdop was the last defender and took his man into touch – the speculative inside pass found a Maori and they scored

Their second try exposed Widdop but to be honest, I would put that down to a cracking kick – Widdop was tracking across from behind the play the ball as you would expect

For their third, it was a kick from a scrum inside their own half – Widdop was defending high as any modern full back does. He did get back first of the English defenders but was beaten on the ground (the replay actually shows that the Maori chaser was in front of the kicker anyway)

Apart from that, Widdop defended some high kicks and grubbers well and got caught once behind his own line from a kick chase but every full back in the world has been caught behind their line from a good kick chase

To single out Widdop for any criticism from today’s game is a little unfair I think

I would have brought Gleeson into the side in place of Shenton, but we don't have that option because McNamara took Tony Clubb instead. Daz Goulding and Martin Gleeson have made a championship winning pairing and would not be found wanting in defence & are a threat going forward. Ryan Hall made a poor error rushing out in defence and I hope he doesn't have another brain fart like that. Our forwards were pretty good I thought - Burgess, Ellis, Griffin and Crabtree all had good games for me. Lockers had a good game too at loose forward. In the halves Brown and Robinson just doesn't work internationally. Sam Tomkins is the catalyst behind this side. I don't think Kevin Brown is international class, but we're short of options with McGuire, Pryce and Eastmond unfit. Sean O'loughlin could do a job there, but I think we'll have to stick with Kevin Brown. Roby looked poor at hooker, Robinson had some good touches and will probably play next week. Sadly the lack of squad depth and poor selections by McNamara don't give us much hope. However I've said before, a fully fit England team doesn't look too bad:

Sam Tomkins
Darrell Goulding
Martin Gleeson
Chris Bridge
Tom Briscoe
Leon Pryce
Kyle Eastmond
James Graham
Kevin Sinfield
Jamie Peacock
Gareth Ellis
Sam Burgess
Sean O'loughlin

-----------------------------
Stuart Fielden
Adrian Morley
James Roby
Joel Tomkins

That side would certainly trouble the Aussies/Kiwis, but sadly we just don't have the depth missing Peacock, Sinfield, Pryce, Eastmond, Bridge and Martin Gleeson not being picked!

Damn

Beat me to it

England are going to get torn a new one.
Tomkins will be lucky to see out the series as he will have that much traffic aimed at him, not because he is that good but because he is the only key player in the English backs the rest are sh*te.
Think Watmough on Burrow in the WCC.

Nice biased opinion from a Wigan fan there, don't see that often. Shenny wasn't that good for us this year however last year he tore teams apart in the centre and if he can score the amount of tries he does with poor (in your opinion) players at the side of him how many will he score with quality players at Saints feeding him the ball?

You do realise that was nowhere near the England full team dont you? The players probably just didn't want to get injured and the result really didn't matter. Judge the boys on Saturday rather than a warm up game huh? Did you judge the Wigan team in the pre-season games? No, you didn't, so why do you with England?

Can I just mention these two. You say Shenton was anonymous. Indeed, we didn't see much of him,
but -
How many time did we see either centre get the ball when attacking outwide in the actual centre channel? I'm remeber shenton getting it once close to their line but toopi got him as soon as he'd caught it - that's the only time I can really remeber. Bar supporting breaks, the only time our centres get the ball is when they scoot from dummy half or crash it up to help the forwards out.

That's not what centres are there for.
If you watch Wigan this year, Gleeson and Carmont get plenty of ball early enough to take on the defence and make a contribution. The England centres should be getting the same service.

Its no wonder it took us 20 minutes to score the first try despite having all the possesion and territory.

Large portions of that game were , but I find it hard to level the balme at guys that do what we're asking weekly at their clubs often against stronger oppostion than Saturday's.

Nowhere near the England team? There was Graham missing, maybe Fielden. Thats the full team isn't it?

So you think it's acceptable that a week before we play our first test match we cannot beat what is in effect a NZ third team?


I like this bit the best though,



What's last year got to do with anything? He hasn't been that good this year and therefore shouldn't have gone.

What do you expect when we are so desperate that we select reserve teamers in the national side.