Pretty fair summary. Australia won't be too worried by either team on this showing.

England played better than I expected. We're missing plenty of players and don't have anyone better in the backs to bring in.

Me too. Never been that impressed with Shenton but to be fair he played well in the 2nd half. Hope he kicks on at Saints, needs to bulk up a bit as well I reckon.

He was playing behind a beaten pack all game but when he moved to FB he looked dangerous, he made the space for the second try.

Goulding, Briscoe, Roby and O'Loughlin were the only ones who had half decent games imo.

Tomkins can't kick, I don't know why they keep trying to. He needs to be at FB, but we don't have any halves either.

I'd bring Lunt in and drop Widdop, Sam to FB, Robbo to 7 (out of necessity as I thought he went ok at 9)

But your whining about one moment, why not complain about the poor completion rate, the missed tackles, the poor defence, the lack of creativity, the poor kicking. I could go on, that one moment isnt the reason we lost the game. Analyse the whole game rather than one moment.

Widdop was poor.

For people giving Roby a big slap on the back, he was a big part of that shocking start and he made some very poor errors early on so he wasnt near our best in the game imo. Graham and Westwood were our top 2 for me.

Big mistake not to take take Gleeson as Atkinns isnt a test centre and im not all that sure on Shenton,who did have a good 2nd half.......so if Atkins is out do we bring Clubb in? this squad really is woeful....they are good SL players but way short of test standard.

I suspect NZ can play much better than we have seen today. England, I would like to hope so but I'm not convinced.

Yep, it's one thing looking decent against France but this is entirely different!

One moment?

First try was a forward pass
Browns try was well err a try
Marshalls 2nd was on the back of Brwons disallowed try
We got penalised for lying on when they were doing it just as much

It doesnt matter how well you play if the refs dont execute the rules properly then you can still lose when you play superb. We didnt deserve to win as we didnt play well but the Kiwis didnt finish us off and we hung in there.

At the end of the day the problem is that all the players started poorly and I including Graham, Roby, Brown, Fielden etc One of these days it would be nice to score first...

The bottom line is that England played well below what they are capable of and yet it could well have been 18-16 with 20 minutes to play if a video ref call had gone the other way

The Kiwi's were the better team but England could still do OK in this tournament

Skill, power, speed and committment.

We just don't have enough.

I think NZ can play better, but so can England, we were woeful in the 1st half.

James Graham was our best player. There were times in the second half that every drive we took we were getting knocked back, Graham was the only one that didn't.

This. Westwood was the only player to stand up to them.

We were shown up by an NZ team who were playing at about 60% today, the Aussies will batter us.

That's hardly a glowing assessment. I'll give the kid a chance for the series. But my money's on him being no more effective than just about any other British half of the last twenty years. He just doesn't have the physical or athletic talents to challenge the best NRL defences consistently.

We was probably playing at 40%

Kevin Brown should have been given his try if only for the remarkable fact that he managed to sight the ball behind Eastwoods a[irs[/ie.

The first try may have been forward but had England had their defensive line sorted they would have stood a chance at defending it. I do think Brown's try was a try, but that doesnt mean you have defend poorly and conceed a try moments later. Im sorry but you can still win when the refs are crap, Wigan have done it many times this season. This is why England are crap, because they have people like you who just whinge about the ref but dont focus on any of the poor things done by England.

Absolute garbage

And we played to about 50% of our potential! All this talk of how bad NZ ignores the fact that we were worse. We need to focus on our game and really step up to have any chance against Aus. Take some positives from the 2nd half performance and work from that.

Chickens go pretty quick!


You said that due to the refereeing, the Kiwis should have 12 points less and England 6 points more. That would've made the score 16-12, England's way.

NZ will get better, we won't. Same old England down under.