The same Brough who's helped drive Huddersfield to second in Super League?
The same Widdop who's starting half back for Melbourne Storm and getting rave reviews down under?


That's a virtual spine missing. Tell us who the Exiles much better side would have been.

The crowd didn't help, lacklustre crowds don't inspire players.

+1

Throw McIllorum, Bridge, Carvell and Myler in there and your just about right.

The scary thing is, Exiles were missing King, J Monaghan and O'Donnell. Imagine those three in that team and England would of got trounced worse than we actually did. There's two possible things to blame here IMO.

1. McNamara
Poor team selection. Sinfield and Myler half-backs? Woeful.
McIllorum, Bridge? Nowhere near good enough.

What happened to putting the youngsters in? Lomax, Gaskell, Welham etc etc. What happened to picking the 'in-form' players? Instead he picked a half crocked Peacock, an anonymous Myler and a centre I wouldn't trust to work a spud gun in Bridge.

2. The English game in general.
Does this go to show how poor the SL really is? How England RL are caught in limbo? Too good for France but not good enough for Aus/NZ?

Maybe it's an over-reaction, but tonight (and arguably in the English game in general) something was tragically and emphatically wrong. Amateur play, powder puff defence, as much bottle as Audley Harrison and a generic p*ss poor attitude. Thats my opinion anyway.

14k was a good starter crowd, something to build on next season - although it didn't look 14k to me.
Need to play it over this way though. Won't be at ours (pitch always re-layed in June), possibly at Stains new ground - 17/18k capacity?

It could have contained King, Hoffman, Menzies, O'Donnell and the Monaghan brothers.

Also, if you're bringing Widdop and Burgess over, it could have contained Benji Marshall and Cameron Smith.

Widdop and Burgess are eligible to play for England.
Marshall & Smith are not for the Exiles.

No it couldn't.

What's frightening from an England pov is that a 33 year George Carmont was the best centre on the pitch tonight.

It looked more like 10k, sounded like 10.

I've heard more noise at a Quins game (genuinely)

to be fair to carmont he was very good against the best club side in the world st goerge

George is an outstanding centre anyroad.
I think centre is our weakest position and I think everyone knew that long before tonight.

Come on, don't forget about Usain.

Standard International atmosphere. How would you get it going though 3 England songs repeated constantly?

Sad to say it from an England pov, but since his injury Jamie Peacock is not the force he once was and I don't think he merits a place in the squad on current form nevermind the starting 13.

A virtual spine? Brough has no England caps and Widdop played twice in the 4 Nations last year and was dropped for the last match because he was so poor in those 2 games.

You seem to be completely missing the point. Yes England had players out but so did the Exiles but to me that isnt even important. Regardless of whether players were missing the team performance was poor as was that of most individuals and the team structure and general play showed absolutely no improvement. All of the reasons why we consistently get stuffed by Australia and New Zealand are still there. For instance if we still look all over the place when an ageing Exiles team pass the ball out wide fairly simply (with our first choice centres and wingers defending) then we arent going to do any better in the 4 Nations. The structures and tactics just arent there and all of the same faults and mistakes are still apparent. There are numerous examples like this. If you want to kid yourself that we will be fine when the mighty Brown, Widdop and Brough play then so be it but based on tonight, even if these palyers were selected, they will still be playing to the same structures and patterns, with the same coaching, so i wouldnt hold my breath on seeing a big improvement.

It was wrong to bring Peacock back, too soon since his injury and his form hasn't warranted a place.

Stick a fork in him, he's done. Absolutely zero agility, it would be suicide to play him against Australia. You know he will though.

As for the crowd figure, I was simply repeating what I read in the media.

I bet non of the cr*p players are dropped for 4 nations, Banana out.

In other news The RFL have lined up Englands next opponents...............on the off chance we may sneak a win !

Captained by Stanley Gene.

Stanley Gene is only 23 !

The fact that I cheered when George went over shows perfectly that it's Wigan over England everytime for me.

To me England Rugby League is a half hearted, temporary and amateurish ''project''. For me to support my country at Rugby League, we have to scrap home nations and revert back to Great Britain Rugby League Club.

However, it should be a club. At the moment, Steve McNamara is ''Mr England RL''. Where as Wigan's is Ian Lenegan, St Helens is Eamon McManus, Leeds' is Gary Hetherington etc. What Great Britain Rugby League need are notable head figures to run the club. It needs a base and no automatic selections. Players need to fight for their squad selection, fight for their position and fight for the honours such as captaincy. Everybody seems to think the having ''camps'' is the right way to go. Well I don't think it is for England. I think players should be picked purely off form for training sessions leading upto games/tests. If this was done, I think we'd have seen a much different squad than we saw tonight.

For international Rugby League to work in this country, I just think we need solid foundations with a correct chain of people and more of a club mentality.