Re: England name team for Friday against Australia. : Fri Oct 27, 2017 1:48 pm  

Missed Walmsley, can't understand why he didn't bring Taylor in for him, we looked very lightweight on the bench.

Re: England name team for Friday against Australia. : Fri Oct 27, 2017 2:20 pm  

not good enough, so close but not enough, always the same story

Re: England name team for Friday against Australia. : Fri Oct 27, 2017 3:22 pm  

Only seen some highlights, mainly the tries. But the tackling looked woeful.

Re: England name team for Friday against Australia. : Fri Oct 27, 2017 5:37 pm  

First half was like watching Wigan last season - 5 drives and an awful long aimless kick downfield.

Second half was better and for long periods England were the better team without really threatening the line enough.

The biggest issue for me (and why England will always struggles against Aus) the half backs - we seem to have a different pairing for every tournament or tour, the halves looked like they did not really have any idea what each other was going to do - compare that to Aus with a spine of Cronk, Slater and Smith who knows each others games inside out. We match them in the forwards and the backs did ok esp the wingers (although Bateman is not a centre at this level). Lomax not sure about - perhaps the fact that at Saints he has played at various positions throughout the season might not have helped.

Re: England name team for Friday against Australia. : Fri Oct 27, 2017 7:30 pm  

Yeah, I couldn't understand them saying on TV that the back three were excellent. Hall and McGillvary (especially) were very good, but not so sure about Lomax. Maybe he'll give Ratchford a go in the next game. As for centres, they left the best English centre at home in my book; Shenton. But there was talk he wasn't fully fit; whether that's why, I don't know.