I am glad that Thompson has come in for Lees as I really do think he is too lightweight and got pushed back to easily in previous games.

Wane has got that team playing for one another,he surely is the best coach for England at the Min.

I agree. I wonder if him missing last week was a way of finding some extra dog inside of him for the semi final?

So would I but we will have to improve, the Australian’s are currently on another level and we will have to find a way of bringing them down to our standard.

to be fair thats what wane is good at

I agree, if I was in the trenches I would want Waney next to me.

I would not want Kallum Watkins in the trenches.

Well if last night was champagne this was pomagne.

Wane out !!!

Looking like a aussie v Samoa final here.

Fair play to Samoa they've been the better team

Playing a semi final in a half empty stadium miles away from our base hasn’t helped. Dreadful atmosphere that was only just as bad as Welsby. What an absolute bottler he is on the biggest stage.

All of England's right edge were poor, very poor - but the whole team lost their heads and forgot how to play the basics.

Quite a few reputations damaged in that performance.

For the neutral it was probably a great game with a thrilling ending however England very much the poorer team today.

To quote Shaun Wane.... wounded!

Not sure how you sell that final next week. Second home final in a row I’m going to watch a blow out score at.

It was the fault of all Wigan players and all players attached to Wigan in some way.

Yes it was , I presume you have signed Welsby and Watkins as well

Reading some comments you'd think so mate. All down to Wane and his Wigan pals apparently.

Were you at the game or sat on the couch/ in the pub? The atmosphere was good in a superb stadium.

Tough one to take that. We didn’t show up until the last 20, and still managed to blow it.

Our sole focus moving forwards needs to be 2025 and the World Cup in France.

Players like, Tomkins, Whitehead, Watkins, Cooper, Hill, McIllorum, Hall and maybe a few others need to retire from international rugby.

We have a 3 year cycle to prepare for a tilt at it again.

For the rest of the week I am officially now a plastic Samoan.

I hope the final is an event worthy of what has been generally a cracking tournament in my opinion.

Still not sure how we went from being extremely well drilled and all working together to looking like we'd only just started playing together.

There were so many points where we should have scored but blew it and gave away two very soft tries.

Even when we did the hard job of getting back into it we then c*cked up extra time with mistakes and handed the game to Samoa.

So frustrating as I thought we actually looked like a very good team and we let the occasion get to use. The first set we should have scored. Samoa lucky not to play with a man down all game, but strangely it went downhill once they lost a man for 10 mins.

I did wonder why Burgess only came back with 13mins to go.

All I'd criticise Wane for is sticking with MM. Otherwise, as said, the way we went from looking well-drilled and organised to, that, was very disappointing.

And as I was sat at home on my settee, I'm not going to bitch about the crowd. But if it had been held at the DW or Headingley, we'd have probably won that game. Who else could we play at right centre? Wardle?

Marks for our spine, then?

Tomkins - pretty poor by his standards, I thought. Kicking game not great.
Williams - patchy, but still the best of them, Most of our better efforts came through him.
Welsby - Who?
MM - poor.
Radley - Pretty good, but gave away that awful interception try.

Tomkins - should be his last game at fullback. Should play 6 or not at all. He had to take over the direction of the team in the last 15 after Williams went missing and Welsby was invisible.
Williams - as you say, patchy. Not good enough to lead a team.
Welsby - bottle job. Should never play 6 at international level again.
McIlorum - looked old and way off the pace. He’s a shadow of what he was in defence, never mind attack.
Radley - worst game he’s had, no real impact for me other than the interception.

I wanted Sneyd on the bench as an insurance policy as well.

Tomkins -done at this level - no pace anymore, easy for defenses to read now.
Willaims - our only good stuff came off him, tried so hard but let down by too many others
Welsby - poor, looked lost at times, big game nerves?
MM- no running threat, similar to Powell does not get defenses going backwards at all, too static
Radley was decent - way better than Knowles

Also
Thompson was poor when he came on thought Cooper was much better but we lacked go forwaard once Burgess/Hill combination was off.

The Watkins/Young combination was poor - Young showed a lot of inexperience.

At this stage of the tournament you cannot afford to lose 1 of your forwards off the bench for a halfback. How can you not see that Sneyd on the bench is a bad idea?

He’s either good enough to start or isn’t.

Radley I thought was immense today apart from the intercept. His numbers will back it up.

Welsby has been poor this tournament but he is out of position but still would have expected more given his quality

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I’m looking all over the internet and everyone is bagging the selections but there was hardly a murmur before the game. Throughout the comp I’d have liked the change up option Ackers could bring from the bench but I can see why Wane didn’t go that way.

As a team we simply saved our worst for our most important game and that’s so disappointing. A few had off days and saved comfortably their worst performance for today but I always like to treat the national side as a team and not bag certain individuals. We just didn’t play well enough. If only they had the game all over again, I’m sure we’d nail it but you don’t get a second chance in a World Cup.