The only chance England have ever had of beating Australia is to make Australia play Englands game, we will never beat an Aussie side playing the Aussie way. They are better than us at it.

It is an English tradition that we use the loose as an extra back, and an Aussie tradition to use them as an extra forward. We should use this as an advantage, use it to close the massive gulf in quality in the backs, by having an extra player there.

Our forwards can hold their own, no doubt about it. Our backs are completely outclassed.

Use Sinfield to give us help in the backs, and get our forwards to front up.

Tomkins was terrible in the final, if Mcguire had played like that he would still be being crucified on here, he was god awful. We dont have the strength not to play an extra back at loose, we do have the strength to not play an extra forward in the pack.

Besides, players like Langley and O'loughlin can offer what they offer from the second row, its just they may not be good enough to get in the 17 that people clamour for them to play at 13

Pryce or McGuire for full-back?

If you werent going for Sinfield at Loose, I would be tempted to go for Pryce who is a great runner with no little creativity

I just hope Macnamara resists the urge to play people out of position, It would also be nice that he picked on form not reputation.

Langers is playing second row this season anyway.

And dont get me wrong, i think he is a good one. He offers us size in the 2nd row no-one else does

I can't believe that no-one has mentioned Kevin Brown from Huddersfield. For me, he is the best English stand-off in the competition at the moment. He has great vision, timing, hands and kicking game, vastly improved in the past few years.

depends on your definition, some players play out of position for their clubs every week through bad coaching and/or their own inflated egos, if they would be better in another position for england then the coach should pick them there and they should crawl over hot coals to play there too!

Pryce could play fullback with Brown and Eastmond the two halves.

Tomkins is a further option, however i think Brown gives the side a ball player and as that extra experience.

Sinfield wouldnt get near a starting 17 as i think he tends to try to take over and control everything. Thereby reducing the halves to a bit of a sideshow.

That was fine last year when Eastmond and Tomkins were given a baptism of fire. However both these players are now far more experienced, In addition we hopefully will also have a fit Kevin Brown, who IMO should be picked ahead of Tomkins.

There are a load of possibilities at 13 - Sam Burgess, O'Loughlin, Purdham, Langley, Gaz Ellis, Wilkin, Joe Westerman. Kevin Sinfield has one quality the others lack - intelligence. As demonstrated by the short kick off on Saturday which turned the game in Leeds' favour.

I don't agree with the idea that somehow England can play a 'different' game to Australia. The only time you ever see a different game is if for whatever reason Australia play it tight. The one thing that always causes GB/England no end of problems is when they move the ball around. The 'ball playing loose forward' hasn't worked for 30 years.

I'd also not rule Flanagan out of the mix as a bench forward. The experience he, Burgess and Ellis have in actually facing the level of attack England will at the end of the year should not be dicsounted. If Ellis and Flanagan can play left and right in defence with Burgess (and potentially Morley) in the middle of the park, we may not look quite so stuffed in defence.

flanagan

Could he do a job at fullback? I think he's played there in the past hasn't he?

Whilst I think Pryce's attacking game would suit full back well, he never looks that fussed about getting him self under kicks.

I'd pick Brown before Tomkins but Eastmond at 7 thus far.

Rob Purdham is an intelligent RL player as are Westerman, Wilkin and O'Loughlin. Langley, Burgess & Ellis i'll give us as just the go forward ones though.

Or his intelligen ce against bradford getting caught with the ball instead of taking the drop. Or the intelligence of not taking the 2 in the final a few years ago. Sinfield should not be anywhere near the squad.

Sinfield looked great at 9 last year, really good I thought.
I wouldn't mind him interchanging with someone like Lunt or Roby. In fact I'd Sinfield looked as good at 9 any of our hookers have looked in recent times

yeah i think our pack worked well during the 4nations, having sinfield starting at 9 with roby on the bench and burgess starting at 13 was very good....

our problems lie at 1-7 not 8-17....OZ & NZ would kill for our pack and bench

Which doesn't exactly answer the question as to why we were knackered after 60 minutes in the final.
We've got a good pack, we're not streets ahead of the aussies or kiwis by any stretch

i would'nt say knackered....shenton getting KTFO killed all our momentum,the aussies too adventage,targeted our leftside and ran in 4 tries in 15mins all as a result of breaking the line down that leftside....

like i said not so much through being knackered more like a loss of concentration....and we've known for years the aussies have it mentally over us..

So when Wally Lewis - a man who knows a thing or two - picked Sinfield after last years 4 Nations as one of the top 3 players in the world, and said England should build the team around him, he was talking rubbish ?

we were pretty soft in defence with him on the pitch



You forgot the important counter argument
We all hate leeds.. We hate Rhinos...

it took till the final for us to concede a 2nd half point....not too bad for a soft defence

We had scored twice in the space of five minutes just prior to this supposed game changing moment, both down the same side.


Loss of concentration is due to fatigue.

Of course he's not, but when Steve Price names Graham as one of the top props in the world, he is