Oh well ...nevermind

[crybaby2]

Apart from being shockingly outplayed by a team who was always, despite several recent performances, a class above them, the major factor in the thrashing was one player . . Darren Lockyer. We talk up our players as 'world class' but here is a player who came out and showed it in the most emphatic way. It was almost as if he wanted to prove what a farce it was to overlook him for the Golden Boot . . which it was.

Great Britain is kidding itself if it takes heart at the earlier performances in the tournament. Australia has been simply awful on the world stage for the past couple of years and other nations have taken heart. Every single NRL player and fan knows that 'State of Origin' football is the pinacle of the game and I think this unconsciously reflects on the way they play 'Tests'.

We have a long, long way to go . . let's not kid ourselves any more and put in the hard work. And most importantly let's stop 'talking the talk' until we can actually back it up on the field. That is what makes this so embarrassing.

[MrsLam]

Agree with the comments about Gleeson. He's done brilliantly considering he hasn't actually played all season, shame I can't say the same about 'the other one' Even with a scoreline like that, if he had put in one useful kick yesterday I woulda jumped for joy.

To be honest, I didn't expect us to win, I actually thought that two weeks ago we'd lose against them maybe we were just lucky.

There's no way you can say well we kept the scoring down second half, Australia had it won after about 30 minutes in the first half. We just didn't wake up, you would think that when you go 2-0, 6-0 and then 10-0 down against the aussies, GB would realise that it's not getting any easier to come back but we just did not look bothered.

I know you can't pin it down to any one player last night but some of the effort that I saw was just pathetic, I remember a nice little kick on the right wing and about 4 aussie players breaking past our defence who were walking, if I'm being kind jogging, towards the ball. Senior looked outclassed and slow, Scully may aswell have not been on the pitch, Newton didnt help giving away silly penalties at crucial times, Long gave the ball to their full back every time.

One man footy last night, feel so sorry for all who went.

[pandasdad]

As Warriors fans we've all seen it before - every now and then a team are sufficiently motivated to pul out a performance which is out of this world; when every thing they try works well. Wigan have done it against Saints and Leeds in particular. This, in my opinion, is what happened with the Aussies on Saturday, but then they were made to look even better by unenthusiastic (wasn't the first description that came to mind) tackling. In one try alone, GB missed 5 tackles and the total missed tackle count would have been cause for concern in my son's Under 12s team, never mind in a team of professionals.

[DaveO]

crybaby2 posted:
Apart from being shockingly outplayed by a team who was always, despite several recent performances, a class above them, the major factor in the thrashing was one player . . Darren Lockyer. We talk up our players as 'world class' but here is a player who came out and showed it in the most emphatic way. It was almost as if he wanted to prove what a farce it was to overlook him for the Golden Boot . . which it was.

No it was not. Lockyer has had a mediocre season with Brisbane and if he had got it, it would therefore have been on reputation alone not performance. He had only pkayed something like 54 moinutes of tri-nations footbal before the final and his domestic season was nothing special at all. The Golden Boot is about a seasons work, not one game.

If you watch the game you will see Lockyer played behind his forwards all the match. GB never laid a hand on him and that was down to a definate game plan to play it that way.

He only came out from behind them when the work had been done. It was very smart tactics from Bennett and of course made Lockyer look even better.

The fact of the matter is it was not Lockyer that won them the match but their forards. They made his job easy.

Great Britain is kidding itself if it takes heart at the earlier performances in the tournament.

I don't agree with that either. This is the first time we have won three test matches in a row for years and so there is some improvement and the competition as a whole got the RL publics imagination.

Australia has been simply awful on the world stage for the past couple of years and other nations have taken heart. Every single NRL player and fan knows that 'State of Origin' football is the pinacle of the game and I think this unconsciously reflects on the way they play 'Tests'.

So why did they up thier game for the final? They knew they had to win that or go home in disgrace. If NRL fans consider SoO as the pinacle they are being parochial. RL needs an International game. The amount of press it got over the tri-nations proves that.

We have a long, long way to go . . let's not kid ourselves any more and put in the hard work. And most importantly let's stop 'talking the talk' until we can actually back it up on the field. That is what makes this so embarrassing.

The performance was dire and what it proves to me is that we still lack depth due i part to the number of overseas players swanning about in our competition. Wellens is too slow but was automatic choice to replace Radlinski. Briscoe would have been eaten alive. Gleeson, who many say had a good series let his opposite number score two tries and missed tackles. And as for Long, well if anyone calls him international class again they are mad.

Then again we do know how to shoot ourselves in the foot. Why play a new half back partnership for the final? Madness. People are saying Sculthorpe was injured to explain his non-performance so why was he in the team? Bad luck he was injured but it wasted a spot.

Also, does anyone think if Australia was hosting this competition they would arrange it so their biggest rivals get a week off before the final and they play a hard game v the Kiwi's?

They are past masters at loading the dice in their favour with bleating about refs and so on so you can bet your life had they been hosts it would be their rivals battering each other the week before the final, not them.

Add to that a bad case of stage fright and GB performed poorer than thery are capable of by a long way. Far too many basic mistakes.

My problem is we don't actually know where we stand because we just dibn't give it our best shot both selection-wise and in how those who were on the pitch let themselves down. Had we played to the best of our ability and still got stuffed 44-4 then I would be very depressed. As it is I am more angry than depressed because they threw away all the work of previous weeks with a poor display.

Dave