Exactly my thoughts. We simply do not have the quality.

Its not simply do not have the quality. Its far from simple.



We competed for an hour there on Saturday, and if anything looked the better quality team. Did Shenton going off have an effect on the final scoreline? probably not the result but probably the scoreline.



Our forwards more than matched the Aussies. So where do we improve from here.



IMO taking the control away from Sinfield and laying it with two inexperienced halfbacks, like we did in that second half, was a key contibutor to how the game changed. Was that Smiths fault? it was certainly a tactical error, but did the players go against the plan.



We do have improvements in us. Getting Yeaman back to form would be a big step, he is far superior to Bridge. I am also looking forward to what the new Wigan coach does at Wigan. Karl Pryce has the attributes of an Aussie, but is wasted. Can the new Wigan coach get the best out of him? if he does, we have a massive improvement straight away, otherwise its another chump.



Looking over the next few years, it is only centre and fullback where we have a shortage of quality. Then it is entirely down to the coach and his tactics.

First choice England v First choice Australia.



Do they match in terms of quality?

Forwards and wings, Yes. Centres, Fullback, and Scrum half, No. Stand off, possibly once Lockyers gone.



Like I said, we need players for the Fullback and Centres mainly. Yeaman on form is better by miles than Chris Bridge.



Therefore without a First choice England we still were better than that First choice Australia for 60 minutes. What happend after is history. You put it down to quality, I put it down to tactics and loss of a very good defender. Somewhere in the middle is probably where it is. But I dont think it is as you put "simply down to quality".

I still believe fitness has a great deal to do with it,otherwise why do we compete for 60 minutes on numerous occasions and then cave in the last 20 minutes.

I train my under 16's to attack, because attacking takes a lot less out of you. Defending absolutely kills you.



So Australia attack, even in defence they attack. And because they attack and we defend, eventually the legs go and the heads go down and then they can do what the hell they want.



In the stages where England attacked for periods the Aussies were blowing out their rings. But as has been mentioned England couldn't keep it up. A lack of creativity and flair, most definately. Fitness, I just think we did too much defending.



I think mental strength has a lot to do with it too, those missed tackles are caused by mental fatigue a lot of the time. And then once the socre starts to slip the mind goes and it's over.

It's all speculation and we can't know for sure, but I'm not so sure it was tactical, or fitness. My theory is that for the first 60 minutes we kept the game tight, it was largely a forward battle, as Test matches often are, and we handled that well. In the last 20 minutes the game started to stretch a bit, as Test matches often do. That put the ball in the hands of the backs, with room to operate. at that point the difference in class between the resperctive back lines and halves came to the fore. The rest, as you say, is history.



Obviously only a theory, like anyone else's, but it's my take on it, for what it's worth.

I'm not saying your theory is wrong. But most peoples opinion on Saturday was that when we brough Roby on things changed for us. Sinfield went away from controlling the game, and the performance diminished. That is a tactic that went spectacularly wrong.



Also I dont thin it was just a coincidence that everything went wrong defensively once Shenton went off, with most breaks coming down that position there after.



Whilst I accept that Australia has a far bigger and better pool of resources to choose from. I still think we were only a couple of positions light on Saturday along with the IMO poor tactical change with the controller/s on the pitch.

I agree. We aren't as far as off as some people would like us to think. Like you say at the moment the centres are our big problem. We have little threat out wide other than from a kick. Australia's great strength lies in its depth of players. If Inglis, Hodges etc dont perform theres another 2 or 3 ready to take their place without much drop in quality. We on the other hand are debating whether to play a 33 year old who's retired from internationals.

I do worry for England/GB though when Peacock and Morley retire.

when you are inferior to a team, in any sport, you can go a long way by being highly organised,highly disciplined and hard to beat.

look at greece in the european championships.



i didn't expect england to win the world cup, but i expected to compete. i didn't expect to look a shambles but we looked like a pub team

But we didn't look like a pub team. We held the best team in the world for 60 minutes, with a bit more luck and some more favourable reffing we'd have been 12-14 points ahead.

The score blew out at the end partly because we tried 3 or 4 short kick offs which didnt work. We could have been boring and settled for a 12 point loss and kicked the ball long. Australia wouldn't have scored all those tries near the end, the score would have stayed respectable and the story wouldnt be "England destroyed by Australia" but would be "England brave effort falls just short". But we tried to get back into the game.

As Gotcha said, we lack in areas no doubt but we aren't miles behind the Aussies and the NRL. If we were we wouldn't have won the 2nd half of the Aussie game 16-0, we wouldn't have beaten the Kiwis, and we wouldn't have been close for the majority of the game in the final.

But you have to look at the complete tenure of Tony Smith to judge if he was successful as the England coach. The way we performed in the world cup, and the first halves of both the French and the Kiwi match, yes we did look like a pub team. Granted we played well in the scond halves and the last two matches BUT consider all the matches that he held the coaching position.