Off to a flyer - England - 0 Italy - 6

Eng 8 - Italy 12
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Now worse with the score 4 - 12 to Italy

However the England Knights have tonked Samoa 52 - 16 with our lads getting 6 of the 9 tries including a hat trick for Hughes and a brace for Powell.

thank heavens for Sam.
scores again.

HT : 14-12 up

2 tries from Sam has see us draw level - who is kicking for us or should I say missing for us.

Sir Kev missed the first 2. Widdop conevrted the third

England losing til Roby came on. Coincidence?

Thought you had been banned, or have you just been in mourning?

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz nice try. now boogie off

Banned for what?

Now let's not derail the thread. It's a serious point, I feel Roby offers far more at 9 than your chap and would be astounded if McNamara doesn't realise that.

You can arguably say that partisan nonsense cost us the last two world cups (esp under Smith). FFS this is the [i[uEngland [/u[/iteam. Or do we have a load of Sun journos here making mischief just for the hell of it.

I'll have my fingers crossed when cheering for the Whinos & Stains players as they trot out on Saturday, but once they're on the park it's England I'll be shouting for & the first person who boos Sam anywhere near me will get an earful.

(notwithstanding I'll be cheering Italy against the taffs later on).

I agree with all of that. I will be at several England games, supporting the whole team, regardless of club. I have never, and would never, boo a Wigan player playing for England.

I was merely pointing out that I feel Roby should be starting and is comfortably the best 9 in England. Similarly I feel Charnley should be starting too. And O'Loughlin. See, I'm not biased.

How you can claim a massive improvement with Roby on the field is beyond me. the score is 6-0 with him on the field for nearly 20 mins, as opposed to 2 tries a piece with Macca.
The biggest question to me would be whether Widdop coming on will spark the halves in creating chances in the 2nd half.

To be fair, my comment was very much tongue in cheek and those who know my sense of humour on here would know that.

I do feel Roby should be starting but I'm not naive or blinkered enough to think he single-handedly brought us back into the game today. I'm sure he helped though.

Roby and Macca are very different players.I would use them for different tactics against different teams. Thats where the coach has to be cute and adapt our 9s to suit. Both of them are decent, and neitehr will let us down.
My biggest issue is the half backs combo, which at the moment isnt up to international standard.

Decent? Massive insult to Roby.

I agree on halfbacks. It's a disgrace that Brough isn't involved, but that's another story. McNamara is obviously going to pick Sinfield so it's just a case of who the other 1 should be. Not convinced Chase is the answer but we are limited on options.

decent is a reference to international standard, not SL.
hence the comparison with the halves who are obviously decent at SL, but not at international

O/T - bein' as we're already well off-topic (Eng 14-12 last I heard BTW).....does anyone know which end of Spotland Ireland will be on Monday the 28th? I'm thinking I might O/D on this WC thing...not gonna happen for some time again after all

McNamara decided that Sinfield and Chase were going to be his WC hb partnership as soon as Chase declared himself for England, IMO. Widdop will get a bench spot at best, Brough knew he wasn't going to get a look in for England so opted to play for Scotland, and players like Smith, Myler, Lomax were never going to get called up regardless of their 2013 form, whereas Burrow always seems to get in, despite being pretty ineffective at international level IMO.

Sounds like a slow start in Salford vs Italy. Currently hanging on 14-12 with 50 mins gone. I think next week we need to go in as hard as possible, they only way we are going to do any good in this competition is through the pack.

1. Tomkins
2. Charnley
3. Cudjoe
4. Watkins
5. Hall
6. Chase
7. Widdop
8. S. Burgess
9. McIlorum
10. Graham
11. Hock
12. Westwood
13. O'Loughlin

14. G Burgess
15. Mossop
16. Roby
17. Farrell

Would be our strongest 17 from the squad IMO. No doubt McNamara will fit Sinfield and Ablett in there somewhere at the expense of someone in form though.
O'Loughlin could also possibly be injured as he hasn't played today.

On an international scale, Roby is far better than decent. He is top 3.

Problem is England side is based around Sinfield and thats the problem he is not international class at 13 and 7. Where Lockers is and most SL sides have a better 7 than him. England will fail to get to the World Cup final with Mcnamara in charge.

Name a top 6 side in SL who would take him as their coach instead of who they have. The side is good the coach is a joke and to let Brough go so he can allow Burrows in was the worst decision he has done. Brough is not international class but he is better than Chase or Sinfield and could have gone in as either 6 or 7.

Not too much to disagree with there, but I do think the time for bellyaching is more than way past & we should be simply getting behind the team & pushing them on instead of winging who should be here or there (I refer m'lud to my previous point).

But we all like a good moan about stuff we can't control don't we.

great start Banana