I was actually quite gutted to see McGuire's performance today. I have met him quite a few times and he is a very down to earth person. He has been one of the best super league players in the past few seasons and i think he will be disappointed in his own performance. I think he has lost a yard of pace over the last few years and i think his confidence has been shot to pieces. I would love him to come out against the kiwi's and have the game of his life, for england and for superleague, but i think his england days are somewhat numbered after todays performance which is a shame.

Feel the same. McGuire deserved his place in the squad and he is a top bloke, but he was involved in nearly everything that went wrong for England. I was so disappointed. I just hope he had an 'off day' as it were, but based on that performance you'd have to go for Tomkins and Eastmond at 6 and 7 next week.

He is a risk we cannot afford to take IMO. He has never performed in the England/GB jersey. Tomkins and Eastmond showed today more class and skill for England than McGuire has shown in however many years he has been a regular international. He has had 2 games to prove he is worthy of his place, he hasnt proved this, so he has to be dropped. Simple as. Nothing against the lad, as i'm sure he is a very nice young man, but, we need players who can perform.

Tbf is it a leeds thing or what? Sinfield / McGuire / Burrows (to an extent) / Smith etc. have never matched up to the same performance as they shift for leeds every week in internationals. The only leeds players who have are JP and Senior....bar them any Leeds player seems to be pretty average when it comes to internationals. So what is it that makes leeds great? Is it just the team spirit and team cohesion that makes them good, because for me most of their star players look anything but when you take them out a leeds shirt?!!

I think the reason Leeds are such a good team is because they have been surrounded by familiar faces each season for quite a few years now (same as St Helens). This may be the reason why they don't quite live up to expectation when they pull on the England jersey?

I know McGuire has had quite a few chances in the England shirt and never really performed, but i would hate to think it is the end of the road internationally for someone of his calibre seeing as we see much more from him in a Leeds shirt.

As sound as he is off-field, I think McGuire is massively overrated. For me, he is just a support player, much like Myler. Take McGuire out of Burrow's shadow and he has nothing to play with. Today proved that IMO, England looked a much better side when he was subbed.

McGuire seems to be getting all the stick from todays match (well apart from Briscoe) but there were a few more who also never turned up for the match.

The biggest disappointment for me was, I have just found out that Morley actually played ! I never saw him, did he actually play ?

JP was also absent and these two were a major part of why we got 'busted' in the first half.

Crabtree was our best frontrower today and Graham wasn't too bad either.Westwood surprised me, as I didn't expect anything from him, played OK.

If these frontrowers don't 'get a grip' we will lose against NZ this coming weekend.

As Artie Beetson said today "Bring back the biff !"

I don't agree with the bit in bold. He was awesome in the 2004 Tri-Nations and it was a travesty that Nobby dropped him for Harris at Elland Road.

It may be my fevered imagination, but I got the impression that McGuire and Sinfield seemed determined to keep Tomkins out of the action in the first half of yesterday's game. He barely got a pass, and whenever he was waiting as first receiver, he was either used as a dummy or was simply ignored as the ball was turned the other way. Only in the latter stages, as it became painfully obvious that McGuire was out of his depth, was Sam brought to the fore.

Normally I wouldn't believe such a thing, but given the persistant rumours about how the Leeds and St Helens players childishly blanked each other during last year's tournament, I'm beginning to wonder. Could it be they were peeved that their mate Rob hadn't got the nod?

similarly in the france game. Myler was starved of the ball. When he finally did get it, he scored twice.

Far too often in both the France and Australia games, England are trying to be the Kevin + Danny show and they seem to forget that some others in the team actually exist.

Is it any surprise that when Kevin switched to distributing from dummy half, that suddenly Sam could be a lot more involved in the game?

I'm not sure if I fully agree with this. To me, Sam looked to be avoiding the ball at times in the first half, standing far too deep to get involved. Once he overcame his nerves and realised that he is good enough to mix it at this level he got himself more involved.

I now await my ritual slaughter.

I agree.

As for Mcguire, I felt sorry for him - its awful to see a player so bereft of confidence. Anyone who's played sport at a decent level will tell you how horrible that feels.

I'll feel sorrier for us if he plays next weekend and is as inept in defence as he was last weekend.

I agree that Sam did stand a bit wide in the first half, but it was the Kev and Danny show, he didn't even get looked at in the first half.

I agree with both these comments and pretty much said the same thing to my mate who I took along for his first taste of live Rugby League for over twenty years. I thought the withdrawal of Maguire and the introduction of Eastmond allowed Tomkins and England some real freedom of expression.

On a slightly different note I thought Eorl Crabtree was excellent when he came on and deserves another run out next week.

He was a bit hesitant, but he was also staying on the left because clearly that's where TS had told him to stay, and the few times the ball was passed left from dummy half it was to Graham or Ellis (and you could count on one hand the number of times it went left in the first 25 minutes). One particularly baffling time the play did 'decide' to go left, Danny McGuire went with it missing out Sam completely (almost like he was ignoring him) and yet again leaving a big big ass hole on the right hand side.


The play shape was supposed to be
[code
<ROBY>

<SAM> <MCGUIRE> <SMITH> <BRISCOE>
<SINFIELD>

And for most of the first half the play either went right straight away and the play shape turned into


<ROBY>

<SAM> <MCGUIRE> <SMITH> <BRISCOE>
<SINFIELD>[/code

Personally thought Danny was out his depth on saturday. Thought young guns Eastmond and Tomkins played well and as mentioned Crabtree played very well gaining the hard yards.


Who was that Aussie prop with the blonde hair who took it up all night. (Yes that does sound rude) He had a stormer.

Hannant? looks like a bit fatter version of Jammer?

Hannant - 78m (10 carries), 37 tackles
Graham - 151m (16 carries), 27 tackles

I agree, Sam was clearly under instructions particularly in the first half, at HT I said to my mates that Sam needed to ignore TS and go in search of the ball. Roby seemed to predominantly distribute to our right side also.

I agree with the comment about Tomkins looking nervous at the start, but that is also probably to do with him being starved of the ball. He touched it about twice in the first half i recall, so undoubtedly was nervously waiting to get involved.

think the Tomkins and Eastmond combo really started to cause them problems towards the end, it was a real shame that it only got going with 15 mins left after McGuire went off. had they played the whole 2nd half there, perhaps it could have been a different story.

at the end of the day, Tomkins and Eastmond have to play together on Saturday - although I suspect that Myler will get the nod again, and Eastmond will be playing at centre or on the bench.

again, maybe a proscribed tactic from TS to attack their left hand side and attempt to tire out Inglis and make him less effective in attack.

Or maybe a plan by TS to enable him to shoehorn Myler in against the Kiwis. :sarcasm: