That is of little consolation

You can move Briscoe into the extremely crap category too...
Goulding crap? He didn't put a foot wrong.
Westwood played as well as Graham.

Crabtree was very average aswell.

He played abit like Feka plays at Wigan today. He put Cameron Smith on his with a decent charge but besides that offered very little.

Australia were there for the taking. Too much dropped ball and some dodgy reffing.

Best team won but far better than the last time Down under

agree, Goulding was penalised for a clear ball steal that will go down as a handling error, apart from that he looked confident, got involved even when injured and kept in position in defence not much more you can ask for in a completely beaten side who couldn't cope with the speed of the Aussie defensive line.

Some people think Tom Briscoe can do no wrong when for the 2nd week running he did sweet FA. How people can say he played better, or even the same, as Goulding is beyond me. Briscoe made 3 runs the entire game ffs and was at fault for tries. 3 runs for a wingers is shocking.

Goulding did nothing wrong bar 1 knock on when the ball was actually stripped and wasnt at fault for any tries. Goulding won 2 penalties with clever dummy half runs, one of which led to a try, made more than twice as many runs as Briscoe and more than twice as many metres whilst also making more tackles. Indeed Goulding made more metres than any other back. This is despite being injured for most of the second half. Goulding was also much better than Briscoe last week.

I agree that Westwood played well too

It's what the aussies would have done had they been losing.

I'd like to say that it was one of the worse performances by a team of officials that I have seen in a RL match. However it's pretty much standard issue when you play Australia with Australian officials. Neutrals won't watch international RL when the home team get 3 scores (they don't need) given to them.

Roby and Westwood were our best players again. It's hard to be critical of Sam, they watched him like a hawk. Not much he could do behind a beaten pack!

Archer's performance was reminiscent of Bentham at his best ( ie worst) last season and the injustices perpetrated by the VR also reminded me of several 95/5 calls that went against Wigan.

The first "mistake" he made in England's favour was the kick which Westwood played after approx 60 minutes. but he judged it to have struck Westwood. The problem was that England were 18 points down by then. Missing those 2 forward passes while pinging the Briscoe to Atkins one ( which was probably a couple of inches forward - not 1 to 2 feet or even a yard forward for the Aussie try) was just criminal and/or totally inept.

The RL have to insist that Bentham is ref for the 4 Nations games against Australia next year with Thaler or Ganson (if available) as VR. And let them watch today's game the night before the England v Australia game and remind them that blatant bias to the home team seems to be permitted.

The annoying thing is that it could have been a brilliant and exciting game - which the Aussies would still probably have won. Not one that was more or less all over by half time - or it was when the final forward pass try was awarded. Rugby league is so much a game of possession and momentum nowadays and blatant mistakes can have a crucial impact on the outcome. Giving a scrum rather than a penalty to England for the stripping of the ball from Goulding was where it all started - until then England had had the Aussies on the rack for almost 10 minutes. But no, scrum awarded then VR try and all momentum shifted to Australia. A couple more Aussie tries soon followed. In reality, England should have been attacking in the Aussie 20 while 8-6 up.

Wrong again.

Unlike you I can make an honest assessment of the players regardless of where they ply there trade at club level.

I thought Graham was our best player he really is playing hard for a contract over there aint he.

For mine our best 3 players were Roby, Westwood and Robinson.

Roby was simply outstanding and from a Wigan point of view could give us massive problems next season playing like that. Westwood was everywhere in defence it seemed in the first half especially. And Robinson showed he can be tricky with ball in hand because of the way he switches the angles of his body, it makes defenders uncertain.

Whilst Graham played OK in my opinion he shouldn't be our captain. His style of play and manner on the field is quite a raw and emotive persona. I think with some calm captain we would have better positioned ourselves. With that being said my choices would be either Lockers or Burgess or maybe Roby because he can get us ticking and lift us from the play the ball.

Yep similar to the aussie defence when 5' 3" Robinson ghosted through and Robinson is the size of a 3 yr old

Many blokes were average today but not seen Joel mentioned, I was really disappointed with him in the last 2 games. he has just been ineffective. looks awesome in sl but hasn't made the step up yet for me.

too true. You need only look at before and after the first mistake. The not-a-knock-on. Before we had a plan and were firing on all cylinders. We could have given them a cricket score. But after we were dejected and it was obvious that nothing was gonna go well.

After half time. A fresh team and really showed how it was don and then more refing mistakes and the same happens. There were glimpses of greatness but it is an inexperienced side that was fighting 14 men on the pitch and 1 in the box. Was never gonna happen with those odds against you.

Good point. I would have thought everyone was like that though. I can't understand that someone would put club level ahead of beating Aussies.

I prefer club footie to international footie. Especially after today ( I felt like I'd been kicked and then punched in the knackers watching those decisions)

But beating the Aussies is always top priority. I wouldn't care if it was shuffle-board I'd still be rooting for us to beat the Aussies.

I can easily admit that Atkins was awful but so were both Tomkins and o'loughlin and briscoe.

Westwood was great and so was Roby (who was better) and Graham.

These are Englishmen and almost our brethren. We should hold them all the same.

I know Graham is erratic but i have a new found respect for him for not beating smith (i think) senseless after that (not-a) play of the ball before they went for the 2.

I was wishing Graham had raced in and tackled Smith which would probably have sparked off a brawl during which someone might have accidentally thumped the ref!

Certainly the Ozzies had the knock-on try and the forward pass try given which were shocking decisions.
The English lads obviously wondered what they had to do to play fairly.
But I thought the Ozzies started chucking it about once they were three scores ahead, and lost a lot of their discipline. Their completion rates in the first and second halves (stanzas) were so different, and it wasn't down to the English playing any better.

If it was the other way round and Richard Silverwood had reffed that match but we got all the decisions there would be absolute uproar from the Aussies but we just bend over and take it. He should never be allowed to ref England V Australia or Australia v anyone again.

I couldnt even begin to discribe how frustrating last nights game was to watch live in the ground. The KEY decisions ALL went the Aussies way, even the Aussies around me were throughly embarrassed by the ref's performance to the extent some of them left the ground early in disgust. They seems genuinly gutted that potentially a cracking game was spoiled/ruined by the clowns officiating.
Even so when you look at our team which was lacking so many first teamers and then look at the Aussies who had an abundance of riches do not be too downhearted, as if the the obvious bias hadnt been there we deffo would have been within a sniff.

It was quite bizarre to read the papers this morning to see Sheens whinging about the ref and how the ruck was too slow!!!! Has there been any mention of the refs performance from players, coaches or officials from ther RFL? theres needs to be as if the boot had been on the other foot, well you could imagine!!

Oh and Mr James Graham earned alot of respect back from me last night as he went to all 4 stands after the game to thank the England fans, great effort!!

If theres any concellation, of the approx 1K England fans there last neet, the majority were Wiganers.

Oh and come on Tommy show them how its done next week.

I think the nub of this is not who played well and who didn't but the fact that every other team sport at international level has neutral referrees.

We pride ourselves on bringing new technology to the forefront in this great game of ours and yet we can't even get the basics correct.

Accusations of bias can be removed by appointing neutral match officials.

In addition I find it quite disappointing that the current super league and NRL rules for what is the same game are different. Interpretation is also different.

Neutral referees, play the same rules and officiate the same interpretation throughout the game of rugby leagure and then there can be no excuses and no arguments.

Playing the same rules and same interpretation would help us considerably when we get to internationals if we have been doing the same all season. It becomes second nature for the players them.

Until this is solved the international game will quite rightly be the laughing stock and not get the recognition it deserves. It should also benefit the European nations by making them more competitive in the long run which is good for the international game.

Ian

Agree totally about the necessity of having neutral referees. They brought them in for cricket about 10 years ago to dispel any accusations of bias after there had been several/numerous injustices perpetrated by umpires favouring their home country. Mistakes are still made, but these are through ineptitude rather than bias and are thus much more likely to even themselves out in the course of a match/series.

It would thus have been better to have Alibert (or a NZ official) refereeing, even though we know he is rather inept and prone to making mistakes. At least these would probably have evened themselves out - unlike the game on Sunday where the Aussies were without exception the beneficiaries of all the mistakes ( forward passes) and blatant knock ons ( 2nd try) as well as any 50/50 VR decisions ( Aussie "tries" allowed, English "tries" disallowed).

Cheating? Give over.

We were outclassed.