Very good summary.

Ignore Rancid and Bull4crap or whatever he is called.

I agree with Rancid re Briscoe in that from memory Hall played much better (even ignoring his tries) than Briscoe did.

Just one thought. Did we only put up one Bomb all game? Then scored from it.

One more thing. Perenara may be a "Kiwi" but only in the same way that Australian's actually called Ashley Klein "English" ie. Henry has lived over here in Oz as a player first, for years and is an Australian trained ref.

One other, one more thing. If Australia allegedly play badly, consider the notion that the opposition are making them do so.

As a matter of interest, could you explain why, after 116 years of Rugby League in Huddersfield, the much smaller McAlpine/Galpharm Stadium has entirely failed since it was built to sell out a single test or international match, including several GB vs Australia? After all you are the birthplace of the great game and have big clubs near at hand in West Yorkshire.

And how many try scoring opportunities did Briscoe get? Certainly Briscoe took the ball up better than Hall for the most part, not dissing Hall as his tries were top drawer but saying Briscoe played worse is just inaccurate.

Both wingers played well and deserve to keep their place but Briscoe made a poor effort of his one scoring chance.

The one he actually scored?

A couple of superb performances and one or two poor ones.

What really infuriates me is the Yeaman/Briscoe partnership, they looked like strangers.

The Chase kick and the Westwood penalty cost us through in the little errors we had because our week in week out intensity isn't there and there's your 16 points.

The Aussies appeared to kick the ball towards Briscoe, in attempt expose an easy target, but England seemed to move the ball better left to right, resulting in Hall getting more ball in their 20m area. As both teams tired, the Aussies started to kick in Hall's direction and he looked dangerous. Infact, for once we looked to have wing/centre combo that wasn't going to get destroyed by the size of Inglis.

Hall, beyond any shadow of a doubt, had the better centre partner, Reed is a class act and has the potential to be the best English centre since Connolly and Newlove. Maybe I'm getting a little carried away, but he seems to have the head on his shoulders to make the right decision when running at full pace. If he made a mistake or two in defence, then he will learn. I remember a certain Martin Gleeson getting exposed by the Kiwi's a few years back, and he went on to become probably best centre England have had over the last 10-15 years.

Without Shenton, Yeaman might be the best we've got, but for England's sake we need to find a better centre partner for Briscoe. Yeaman just didn't look as if he's got the size, strength or quality for international RL. Some of the goal line defence down the left was woeful, although that wasn't just Yeaman's fault. I really hope he proves me wrong next week. At the moment England need another option, if we're going to compete at the World cup. Maybe Charnley should be groomed for that role.

we do have other option for centre you know, leroy cudjoe...

England played with a structure and plan for pretty much the whole game. We were always able to make ground against the aussies - which is the first time in many years that we haven't thrown the game plan away after 10 mins and reverted to 1 off drives.

We showed we could break the aussie defence and that we could contain the aussies for large parts of the game.

I've never been a big fan of mcnamara but credit to him - we looked a well coached side. I think swapping widdop for chase and putting carvell on the bench are the two things he can improve on.

The aussies showed us how to take their chances every time they were in our quarter of the field. THat was the difference between the two teams.

It doesn't help that the ref failed in around 3 big calls. The aussies are too clinical a team to get that sort of help and lose. Take the ref out of the occasion and we were looking at least a 12 point turnaround in the scores and then anything could happen in the last 10 mins.

Previous england teams would have folded in the last 30 mins - we stayed in the game this time.

We now seem to have more than a few players who can cause the aussies a proble,.

Until we make it a priority to put more pressure on the opposition playmakers , as they do ours , we will not beat them

Briscoe still made a pigs ear of it and could have quite easily scored in the corner if he dived in a conventional manner. Yes I think the try should have still been given but if he had finished properly there would have been no doubt.

I think its fair to say that Hall played better than Briscoe. Hall was outstanding and did very well to score both those tries. I would say that Briscoe was okay but he did knock on a couple of times and made more mistakes defensively than Hall. Briscoe has looked far from convincing in all of his appearances against Australia or New Zealand and still makes too many mistakes at this level. He is still young though and should be persevered with, particulalry as much the same could have been said of Hall up to yesterday.

Briscoe's defence stats yesterday were shocking....

Tackles Made - 3
Tackles Missed - 2
Ineffective Tackles - 1
Penalties Conceded - 1
Errors - 2

Think I was watching a different game to a few on here, mind you didn't have any in from my team so no bias!!!!

Absolutely correct.

He should have finished it without leaving any doubt in the mind of the ref.

I could ask you the same question,after all it is West Yorkshire's test match.

As for Wembley,yes it is the national stadium but yet again it would appear that,judging from the empty sections,the pinnacle of international RL fails to capture the imagination of a sizable number of the local population.

Darren Lockyer may play his last game in the final. If England qualify I reckon they'll beat us by 45+ (based on what I saw yesterday).

If we our big forwards aren't fully fit for NZ next week (as seems possible then I doubt we'll make the final.

This is my worry. We've been close so many times, then they wallop us in the final. We've also got the not inconsiderable task of defeating NZ. Regardless of the ref yesterday, they were still better than us, not 30 points better as in the past but more like 10 points.
Got to give old McBannana and Powell some credit too.

The point is, if the so-called RL heartlands can't sell out a 25k seater stadium for a test match against Australia it makes no sense for someone based in those heartlands to call out London, which has a minimal Rugby League culture, to sell out 90k seats at Wembley. Would this game have attracted as many fans had it been played in the North? No way - so it was the right decision and the crowd was a good one by international RL standards. If you want to project the "failure" of RL in London from a 40k+ crowd then all other international crowds say a lot more about the collective failure of heartland fans. I was gettting texts yesterday from a so-called hard-core fan saying what a joke RL was with a half empty stadium - as he sat in Halifax watching on tv. These "fans" are the real joke - they proclaim their love for our sport but do nothing to show their loyalty and rejoice when they perceive failure.

There are well over 100,000 SL fans in the North attending matches regularly(excluding Cru, Cats & Broncos) to estimate less than 20k actually turned up to watch is poor imo. There were loads of people from outer London regional amateur teams going (ours included) that were offered £10 tickets by the RFL. If you add those to the circa 20K London postcoded tickets that the RFL stated had been purchased a greater number of fans came from the South.
Make of that what you will

I'd rather we played Wayne Bridge.

I've not seen much of Cudjoe at international level, but he seemed way out of his depth against the Aussies last season. Although, that was just what I saw on the highlights, and highlights don't tell the full story.

wayne bridge?

the footballer!

not a choice, not in the squad.

It was a poor finish. Straight forward dive in the corner but he made a right meal of it.

My mistake. Wouldn't have any professional footballer near the England team.