My picks for worst player were Williams who didn't seem to be able to actually hold onto the ball and Bateman who just didn't seem to have any strength, clattered into tackles and was floored immediately with no progress made.

It's ironic that mcguire used to be selected all the time when he was less of a complete standoff and more of a runner, then in his twlight years when he has honed his skills and become a real chief and creator, he is nowhere near the set up.

I'm not sure it was down to individuals we just had no structure in attack. We could have had Thurston in there and been almost as bad.



We badly missed an attacking link player, but then again there were no runners anyway. Absolutely awful attacking structure.



Maybe the stint in defence took it out of them.

I think you have a fair point about Englands extra effort in defence, on reflection I think someone like gale playing what he see's in front of him might be the best option, Widdop holds the team in position & directs well but he will not have that unexpected play in his bag or a speculative off the cuff play, Williams I am sure has that but he needs time to grow in confidence at this level to be able to fight his corner with the coach. An example today was Roby quiet rightly putting a kick through into space but no other player on the side was quick thinking enough to realise what he had done. Maybe it was fatigue after defending or they are coached to play a ridgid pattern with no room for flair?

What's Gale's passing game like?

Maybe people should look at why we had to do so much defence not use it as an excuse for a poor performance. Lucky NZs halves were terrible in the first half. If SJ was playing the game would have been finished in the first half

Pretty good.

If he's alongside Widdop I hope he doesn't, tbh.

We are playing the simplest RL game plan possible, if not one up then its a drop off from first receiver. Thats it, thats our plan. NZ can pack the middle and shoot up because can't and wont get it wide quickly. Its a game plan the rests on the other team playing poorly.



We have probably the most gifted british centre to come through this Millennium and a speedy, exciting young winger outside him and they havent been given the ball in any kind of space in 160mins.



We have one of the biggest, strongest wingers in the world on the other side who is virtually unstoppable near to the line playing outside two second rowers who are great defensively but limited going forward.



This isnt a talent issue, its a tactical one. To not score is unacceptable and we didnt even look like scoring, the lack of creativity was startling. This wasnt a case of players not having the tools to execute, its about a game plan that left them nothing to execute.



And lets not pretend we are building something here. Only Burgess and Williams are under 21, and Bateman 22. We have as many players 29 and over as we do 23 and under.



And lets not pretend that this is an accurate reflection of the quality of the English players, this isnt a case that we just arent good enough to expect to be beating Australia and NZ, McNamara's England have lost against Italy, struggled to beat Samoa, and lost to the exiles.



Luke Gale isnt the answer and McGilvery or Burgess, Cudjoe or Bateman arent taking us up a level. McNamara has to go. Being held scoreless is just unacceptable. But win or lose next week, England RL need to be looking at why we dont have a stand out half, why we dont have 2 centres demanding a shirt and why there arent 5 more behind them knocking on the door, where are our ball playing second rowers. What are we doing to mitigate our weaknesses? We have some, and we have places we need better players, but we also arent getting the best out of the great players we do know we do have,

Biggest disappointments for me have been Hodgson and Graham.



It was almost like they were playing not to lose. There was zero idea in attack, dull one up rugby that was as predictable as it was boring. Not sure what he's coaching our half backs, but they showed no creative spark whatsoever. We could have played for another hour and still not scored...



You can bet if Johnson had been playing today NZ would have won at a canter...

Just got home. That wasn't much fun at all. I don't remember anyone saying after last week that Williams wasn't international class, but suddenly he isn't? He's a young lad still learning his craft but has a lot of talent and a bright future in front of him. I'd certainly keep him in the side to play in front of the Wigan fans at the DW next week. Whether Widdop, who was equally poor, should be alongside him is another question. I can see the argument for playing Matty Smith alongside his club team-mate next week, even though Smith has had a generally very poor season, as even Wigan fans admit. But he'd surely improve our kicking game on what we saw today. I think I'd be content with Smith/Williams or Gale/Williams. But as others have rightly said, it's fundamentally more about tactics than individuals. We have two world-class wingers, and they're not getting the ball.

Regardless of personnel, our game plan was so simple it was far too easy to defend against.



I thought last year and in the World Cup we played with some creativity . We seem to have gone backwards big time.



You can only blame the coaches not the players.