Australia didn't put any effort in once theyknew they had it won. If we'd have got close to drawing or winning they would have turned it right back on.

Why the hell is Lee Smith even playing? He should be no where near the national if he is turning his back on the code, plus i'm not even sure if he's good enough anyway!



Danny Maguire brings very little to the team in my opinion, start with Eastmond. Electric pace and will attack the line.

That is rubbish mate. Like they would go through a whole half without scoring a point. Yes, they thought they had the game in the bag and probably [idid[/i relax a bit but to imply they wouldn't have loved to rack up 50 or 60 (like they did last year) is way off the mark.



The only thing that changed is that England started playing in the second half and didn't let them score at will!!

Seconded. Great support player in superleague but sets up nothing. He's not a halfback in that sense. He looked pretty poor yesterday.

Is it just me or has he also lost some pace?

Christ if he loses that then he has literally nothing going for him as a player imo.

www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... of_it_yet/

www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... of_it_yet/

Maguire has always had good acceleration, but he's never been that quick over more than 30 yards or so. Still not slow mind.



That's the way i've always seen him anyway in Super league.

Maguire looks better with Burrows.

Not that old chestnut again. This isn't 2004. McGuire does set things up - just look at his try assists this season (15 IIRC). Unfortunately he's still not the complete stand-off - maybe if he'd gone to the NRL early in his career some of these deficiencies could have been sorted out.



I agree he had a very poor game though, and it wouldn't be unfair to drop him for next week. That said he was one of the few players to cause NZ serious problems in the WC last year, so it's not like he's incapable of putting in the good performances at this level.



On the defence issue, any of the England backs would have looked poor having to defend an overlap against the likes of Inglis and Slater. This has to be a failing of the sliding defence in operation rather than the fault of any individual player. If you want someone to blame it should be the coach.



Also, FWIW, although Burgess looked good when he ripped in in the second half his ball security needs some work for him to be better at this level.

I'd disagree with that. He was very quick when he burst onto the scene in 03/04 but since getting a few injuries in 05 he seems to have slowed down a fair bit now. Same goes for Brent Webb since his spate of recent injuries.

Why do we care about what Burgess needs?

and