England 10 - 22 NZ

[Brad5926]

Missed key players like Mcguire, Eastmond, Morley and Peacock.

Would have been alot more satisfied with a team of

1. Sam
2. Goulding
3. Shenton
4. Atkins
5. Briscoe
6. Mcguire
7. Eastmond

Widdop cannont play on next week, how can we give a starting england place to a guy who doesnt even play on a consistent basis for his club.

[ancientnloyal]

he has to challenge one Billy Slater mind you... but you're right didn't show enough quality tonight (or this morning)

1. sam
2. briscoe
3. shenton
4. atkins
5. goulding
6. brown
7. robinson

seems like the bets we have.

[cpwigan]

Widdop did ok. One mistake and defended better at centre than Atkins. For me DECISION MAKING / TEAMWORK in defence and DECISION MAKING / BALL CONTROL are the keys.

1). The coach made some bad decisions. His selections perhaps BUT his interchanges were poor. Given how much work England had to do in that first 40 to leave Burgess on for the full half and not to give Joel Tomkins any time was very poor IMO.

2). We often get carried away in Britain about individual runs etc etc and I daresay for example based on a couple of runs people will say Shenton had a good game BUT the decision making / teamwork in defence of our two centres was amateurish. Every player on the fringes has to be singing from the same hymn sheet and the only time you move out of your line is if you know 99% certain that you can nail the ball/ball recipient/carrier. V Good players if you make the decision for them then they will take advantage. Both Atkins and Shenton are terribly selfish and naive in defence.

3). Far too many unforced errors with ball in hand meaning too much effort and burning any energy. You cannot hope to win a game making so many unforced errors. When you finally do get possession and field position then repeat sets should be the call. Running the ball on the last / trick plays are BAD DECISIONS. You need to start evening possession / workload come what may.

Based on whaat I watched I think I would go with;

1) Sam T - Keep his energy level up / freedome of the park etc
2) Goulding - Thought he had a decent game. Not likely to get a pass of Shenton though.
3) Shenton - I suppose. Selecting Clubb was pointless.
4) Briscoe/Widdop - 50/50 call
5) Briscoe/Hall - Depends on centre choice
6) Brown - Better than last week
7) Robinson - No real choices
8) Graham
9) Roby - Needs to cut the unforced errors
10) Burgess - I thought back row would have been best call. Not sure now
11) Ellis
12) Westwood - For the first 15/20 mins then Joel
13) Lockers

14) JTomkins - Must get more game time
15) Lunt - No choice if Robbo plays 7
16) Fielden
17) Griffin

[TonyH]

First of all it was 24-10 second of all why do people not listen to me in the first place? Ryan Atkins is shitting himself in defence and his arse drops out when he has the ball, everyone needs to put their todgers away over him cause he was the cause of 2 of New Zealands tries.

I've said all along that Gareth Widdop should be in the centres but noooooo everyone wants Atkins this and Atkins that, the guy is terrible and how muuch better did we look when Sam went to full back and Widdop went to the centres with Robinson at 7? Everyone bangs on about Robinson being a hooker etc, no he isn't, he is an organiser, a scrum half he started out as a scrum half and it's only since the game has progressed and hookers are just another half back that people have started calling him a hooker, Roby is fit enough to play 80 minutes like Cameron Smith does, Roby was our best player today by far.

Tomkins needs to play full back is the be all and end all, we're missing a few players but we have to work with what we've got and this is it:

1. Tomkins
2. Goulding
3. Shenton
4. Widdop
5. Briscoe/Hall
6. Brown
7. Robinson
8. Graham
9. Roby
10. Fielden
11. Ellis
12. Burgess
13. O'Loughlin (Another who played well today)

14. Crabtree
15. Westwood
16. J. Tomkins
17. Lunt

[TonyH]

Widdop did ok. One mistake and defended better at centre than Atkins. For me DECISION MAKING / TEAMWORK in defence and DECISION MAKING / BALL CONTROL are the keys.

1). The coach made some bad decisions. His selections perhaps BUT his interchanges were poor. Given how much work England had to do in that first 40 to leave Burgess on for the full half and not to give Joel Tomkins any time was very poor IMO.

2). We often get carried away in Britain about individual runs etc etc and I daresay for example based on a couple of runs people will say Shenton had a good game BUT the decision making / teamwork in defence of our two centres was amateurish. Every player on the fringes has to be singing from the same hymn sheet and the only time you move out of your line is if you know 99% certain that you can nail the ball/ball recipient/carrier. V Good players if you make the decision for them then they will take advantage. Both Atkins and Shenton are terribly selfish and naive in defence.

3). Far too many unforced errors with ball in hand meaning too much effort and burning any energy. You cannot hope to win a game making so many unforced errors. When you finally do get possession and field position then repeat sets should be the call. Running the ball on the last / trick plays are BAD DECISIONS. You need to start evening possession / workload come what may.

Based on whaat I watched I think I would go with;

1) Sam T - Keep his energy level up / freedome of the park etc
2) Goulding - Thought he had a decent game. Not likely to get a pass of Shenton though.
3) Shenton - I suppose. Selecting Clubb was pointless.
4) Briscoe/Widdop - 50/50 call
5) Briscoe/Hall - Depends on centre choice
6) Brown - Better than last week
7) Robinson - No real choices
8) Graham
9) Roby - Needs to cut the unforced errors
10) Burgess - I thought back row would have been best call. Not sure now
11) Ellis
12) Westwood - For the first 15/20 mins then Joel
13) Lockers

14) JTomkins - Must get more game time
15) Lunt - No choice if Robbo plays 7
16) Fielden
17) Griffin

Bang on CP couple of different positional choices from me i.e. Burgess in the front row and stuff but apart from that you are correct lol

[cpwigan]

If you think Roby was our best Tony you need to lie down

Lockers IMO was amazing how much workload he got through (TOO MUCH) and Ellis by and large was good. I thought both wingers were decent too. Roby was one of the biggest culprits early doors re unforced errors and possession turnover.

[cpwigan]

However, Tony spot on re Atkins. DIRE.

[TonyH]

He was nervous at first yeh I'll give you that but when he started running at the Kiwis he was dangerous plus he is hard as nails don't think i've ever seen him injured, him and Lockers were the standout players, Ellis took the dummy off Marshall just before Marshals try and you'd think that playing in the same side as him week in week out he would've known that by now, our slide and scramble was poor today, Atkins left Briscoe far too many times, can't do that with Nightingale out there

[gpartin]

Didn't catch the first half but saw NZ's 3rd try and Westwood, Griffin and Widdop looked woeful in defence for it and at other times afterwards Ellis missed a few tackles. Shenton had a number of opportunities where he could have passed to Daz but didn't so knowing McNamara Goulding will get dropped, shame because he was constantly trying to get involved, held his position well when needed and covered for some defensive errors. Think the BBC were making a bit much of the disallowed Brown try, it was clear he held the man back. One thing I noticed was they were getting much longer to complete the tackle than we were, this allowed them to push us back but the ref was shouting 'clear' for us in similar situations.

[cpwigan]

The Brown decision was correct. I thought Archer was a tad biased. He treated the England NRL players differently to the SL English players IMO. Bad decision to award a 20 tap for NZ when we were on their line. He made several mistakes.