Well thats as maybe but Tomkins was very good second half and it,s hardly his fault that the "ageing" Lockyer was picked by Australia.

You can't deny we were much better 2nd half ,yes we lost but there was alot to take away from the match.

Agreed mate.

This is the defeatist mindset we face.

Why automatically presume the Aussies will find a player to better Tomkins???

From what i see of the NRL there doesnt seem to be any young aussie born halves really ripping the comp up!!

Not only do we have Tomkins but Eastmond was putting doubts in the defensive line yesterday big time and can kick the football also and weve seen young Myler (who will only get better working with TS at Wire) step on to the international stage recently.

Im quite excited by the way we are giving yout6h the chance.

We could have gone down the tryed and failed route yesterday with likes of Wellens, Senior, Gleeson etc and still been beaten but the lads like Briscoe at fullback (still early 20s heart of a line good support player with pace and decent defence) will only get better and showed no fear.

we improved because in the second half the aussies let us improve. The aussie team in the second half didnt look like the same one from the first half. The aussies slowed their game down. Got to agree about Tomkins though, Great player!

Glad we agree about Tomkins but I have never believed if you are winning you don,t try your best. When I was a lad I wanted to score every time I took a pass and this impression the Aussies took their foot of the gas is misplaced imo.

When we learn to pass properly our game will move forward. We have talent as a side but we can do things better.

The Aussies would have wanted to paste us in the 2nd half too. I am sure they would have been the most gutted when we scored the 1st Try because it stopped them nilling us.

Australia probably have 3 who can run rings round tomkins now who cant play first grade they just have a long line of young talent there at the minute, we are garbage and there may be a defeatist way of looking at it.. i would say an honest way.

Should we save on travel expenses for the next one, and just let Aus and NZ battle it out

Exactly, leeigh thats how its gonna be for the next 20 years, our game simply isnt important enough for funding and reasearch that the aussies have

Seems to me if you are talented you are.Government funding, as no doubt we will discover, when this country hosts the Olympics helps, no doubt about it.

Biggest sport on the planet is assosciation football who has the best team in the world though and how much government funding did they have ?

All this Sky money and England can,t beat Ukraine

at footie.

Never say never noone knows how good or bad our National RL side will be in 20 years time.

I think our team ie England isn,t far off. Just takes time.

Well said.
Didn't England Cricket struggle against them Aussies for the Ashes.....Don't follow cricket but it something like the 80's or something since we last won them, and now we have won them twice in recent years.......

It took the unprecedented move of introducing P&R into domestic cricket to finally win an Ashes series, now have they hit on something I wonder.

Austrilia wont have many better than Tomkins a doubted him at 1st but he showed skill and maturity the other day. Austrilia produce good young centres and wingers (Inglis,Foloua) you name me 1 thats better scrum half than tomkins and if the aussie youngsters are that good why have West Tigers bout Flanagan from wigan who wasnt even in the top 5 young players?? Stupid loser attitude is what gets us nowhere

You and your attitude are not wanted in sport!!!

We have a game that we are good at and have a product that only the Aussies can rival unlike any other sport!!!!!!

Lets look at in real terms and attempt to be the best it wont do anyone any harm!!!!

We will beat NZ next week at at the very least run Aus close in the final TS is the best RL coach in RL and will show why next week!!!!!!!!

Well said!!

The Aussies alaways struggled to produce Halves like ours likes of Murphy and Millward always ran the legs off forward orintated sides!!!!!

Lets get back to what we are good at and let these ellusive kids run the convicts ragged!!!!!!!!

TBH i thought their half back was out standing and we don’t have anyone in that grade. We just don’t produce that kind of dominant half back in this country.

Agreed. To say that there aren't many as good as Tomkins is just ignorant. There wasn't an English player on the pitch that outplayed Lockyer or Thurston in the 1st half. Aussie half-backs are streets ahead of ours just through their kicking and passing ability.

If Tomkins achieves just a fraction of what Lockyer has managed in his career, then he'll have done well.

The Aussies are good BUT they are damn well cocky with it and i think in the second half we knocked that cockiness out of them ,plus i was sick of the commentators going on and on about how fantastic they are and that they were showing us a master class in rugby, for goodness sake they dont need anyone else telling them they are good they are very good at telling themselves TUT!

Thought Tomkins was brilliant, would like to see him partnered with Eastmomd at half back. Think the Ausies wiould find it difficult to find a pairing who could cope with those 2.

They coped very well with them , how many times did they get tackled ?

Compare that to how many times we laid a hand on Lockyer and Thurston ?

you read me point proper i said that they dotn have any young halfbacks Lockyear is 33 and tbh having looked at the young 6s coming through there isnt many. Inglis is a better centre dont get me wrong Austrilia are good but they win cause at 6 year old were we are playing for fun they are having it drilled into them to win thats why as a team we will never get near them but individually we arent as far behind as people think

Are you sure , fairly certain the aussies dont even tackle in matches till much older than that , they concentrate on skills rather than winning , plus they dont try to make ' super teams ' like so many do here

Well although I maybe labouring the point the main difference between the two sides is the speed of passing.

Fitness is the same for all sides at this level. At the moment Australia have faster outside backs. We have Australian coaching methods.

We can compete but at this time we need the bounce of the ball to beat them.

We will soon.

Think thats because Lockyer went hiding ,the poor fella was knackered from trying to catch Tomkins

These two will cause problems for any side. The amount of experience gained from this competition will serve these lads well!
The Aussie's were knackered in the last quarter of the game and, if we can dish some rough treatment out to Inglis and co, we could see a much more competitive game, next time!