I think a triangle of 7. Eastmond 6. Tomkins and 1. Widdop (or a superleague fullback who can claim the spot) is ultimately the way forward. Obviously that wasn't possible this time round, but I wish we'd taken an organising half-back. Someone like Deacon could potentially have made a difference in terms of us finding our way through our sets of 6.

They didn't "help" they completely turned the game in Australia's favour.

At least we can build a roof.

For me Tomkins has to be in the halfbacks. Widdop is probably our best fullback... and he can't even get into the first team! Ok he is behind the world's best but that's the situation we find ourselves facing. Ideally he'd be loaned to another NRL club where he'd get first team experience week in, week out, but we know that's not how it works.
As a Wigan fan let me say that if Deacon had been on the field he'd have been crucified.

Just out of interest, why is that? Dodgy defence? Obviously he's not a particularly dangerous player, but he does keep a team ticking over, and he has a great kicking game. These are two things which this England side has desperately lacked.

I thought Deacon's role in your GF performance against us was vastly underrated. But then, I don't see him play every week.

Last week he was a full back playing half back now he's a half back playing full back.

Well he's never done anything at international level when he's actually been in relevant form so what makes you think he'll suddenly start doing something now? He wasn't good enough back in the day so why would he be now? It would be like picking Wellens over Widdop.

I'm certainly not advocating it as any kind of long term solution, but I think it would have been hepful to have him, or someone with similar qualities, in the squad. The fact is we took a squad without a half back that can organise a side and without a single player with a kicking game. Picking Deacon would have been excusable IMO if only because there was nobody in the squad capable of doing the kind of (crucially important) job that he does - as such it would have been nothing like picking Wellens over Widdop.

Deacon's organising skills aren't good enough to compensate for his lack of other aspects of play. Suggest Brough maybe but not Deacon.

If we pick Deacon we might as well all return to carrying clubs and living in caves.

It was an awful game to watch, and frustrating too as Australia did nothing special - any team would have scored points with the amount of good field position they were handed on a plate by our own stupidity. Errors like the ones we made have no place in Test football.

That we would have been close if it wasn't for some unbelievably bad officiating makes it even more annoying. If we had completed a few more sets and got them working out of their own 20/30 we'd have had a real chance.

England still showed that when it comes to one man out, head down backside up, run at the tackler cos you got no brains, there is no other team on the planet that beat them in that aspect of the game!!

As regards the scrum half position, it seems Robinson is finally starting to fulfil the potential he showed when he first came into SL. He'll be good for us.

Apart from australia and nz who run the ball in harder and make more ground.

I've yet to see you post anything but absolute rubbish on here.

You seem intent on spending your debut year on here embarrassing yourself. So far, so good.

Now, I don't usually have a go at referees but, come on, England did not deserve to win the game but they deserved a 'fair go' as Aussies love to say. Australia V England in Australia with an Australian referee, 2 Australian linesmen and an Australian Video Ref…


Whats that all about.

Cooper Cronk touched that ball, Brent Tate clearly didn't have control (the ball bounced up 6feet!!!, he bounced it) the forward pass in the secomd half was just taking the p!ss!

As I say I don't think England deserved the win but the whole game was a p!ss take.

Nice to see Sheens and Lockyer deflecting Archer's bias towards the Aussies:

Just to point out, but the try people are blaming Cudjoe for is actually down to O'Loughlin, Cudjoe and his winger did perfectly, moving up quickly to meet the attack and stop the move dead.

O'Loughlin stood and watched as the Aussie line attacked and it was the gap he left they scored through.

But in the main the whole team underperformed which was bad enough, but then we were made to bend over by the ref.

Didn't think O'Loughlin did too badly playing out of position. Would much prefer to see him at 13 and Sam Tomkins in the halfbacks though. Robinson, Lunt and Westwood (yet again) happily surprised me.

I think he is good enough to hold his own as an international back rower, mainly down to his defence. But at 6 you need to be able to threaten the defence with your running &/or passing, neither he is up to at that level. Much as Brown failed in the first 2 games I feel he is the only 6 we have out there. A pity Pryce, Eastmond, McGuire, even Sinfield for his vocal leadership, were not available.

the big mistake for me was taking both our 2 best players in Graham and Burgess off after 20minutes. At that point the score was 8:6....when they came back on after 35 minutes it was 24-8.

There was no real need to do that. Graham can play long minutes, so the 2 of them could have been spelled more effectively in that middle period.

For something a little less negative, I thought Luke Lewis was outstanding. I did make a call, I think before halftime in the PNG game, that I pick Lewis to come out as the best backrower of this year's tournament. As long as he starts every game, I obviously hold to that. He's not a bench player at all, like many Australians were calling for. But now he might be injured, which would be a great shame.

He missed the tackle for Burgess' try (though I don't know who could've made that one), but his 2 tries, 2 try-assists, 3 linebreaks and 8 tackle breaks completely nullify that one mistake. He runs great lines, is fast and agile enough to evade most opposition forwards, big and strong enough to break the tackles of everyone else. He's got ball playing skills and is generally one of the best defenders in any team he's in.

Fantastic player.

I agree on that, reminds me of Steve Menzies in his prime.

Wasn't James Child one of the assistant referees?

... but yes having a Aussie ref and an Aussie VR is just outrageous!