The NRL.com player ratings have Sinfield at 8 out of 10. The highest mark they gave any England player.

I suppose some people will just describe them as a parochial Sydney based website that are biased in favour of the Golden Boot winer.

I thought Sinfield had a very good game yesterday

Get over on to TRL,that's hilarious.Should be nowhere near the England set up,doesn't offer anything at all to the team.

It's a nightmare over there, there's a few posters who just cannot accept Simfield could possibly play well.

Honest opinion Sinfield has been a great leader for Leeds no one can doubt that, he's a great kicker both with ball in hand and goal kicker.

However how he won worlds best player is beyond me, The Aussies had 3 better players in the same team to start off with in Cronk, Slater and Smith and Tomkins over here was playing better.

Sinfield bit like kick and claps Johnny Wilkinson, great kicker but does he really do all that much with ball in hand or beat a man?

As for England the form halfbacks would have been Smith of Wigan and Brough of Huddersfield.

Will be a Kiwi vs Aussie Final

What Sinfield brings is structure and a reasonably cool head under pressure, without which England would look absolutely clueless. We shouldn't need a halfback to just bring that - any top class half back should - but in terms of English there aren't any who can be RELIED on to do it in big games.

That's not to say he'll create bucketloads of tries, or make breaks all over the field. But I've seen plenty of GB/England teams in recent years where the attacking play is literally all over the place because neither halfback has a clue how to run a set of six. The result against Australia is basically embarrassing.

I'd have no problem picking a more dangerous attacking halfback than Sinfield, IF he could also organise. That isn't a strength of Chase or Widdopp (possibly in the future). Brough hasn't ever delivered when it counts, and took his bat home anyway.

As for McNamara, I still am not sure about his actual coaching, but none of the problems England had yesterday were of his making.

What about moving Sinfield from 7 to 9? That was clearly pre planned.

You're right - I agree that wasn't a good move. Nobody should need to move a halfback when spelling a hooker. I wonder if it was more about wanting Widdopp on the bench than anything else?

If only Roby could play 80 minutes we'd be able to have a far better balanced bench.

I agree regarding smith, but brough although he's had a great season, he chose Scotland and I don't think SMC is a fan of players switching nationalities, which I agree with once you play for one national side that should be that. I know other countries do it but it doesn't make it anymore right.
It's more confusing the non-inclusion of Lunt nd crabtree IMO

Spot on mate, I'm fed up of reading the half back, mainly Sinfield, bashing on here and twitter. Its astonishing the mental disability so called knowledgeable Rugby League fans have at times. The mistakes were obvious. The mistakes that lead to Australia putting points on the board are simply not good enough at this level. Did Sinfield or Chase for that matter do anything absolutely world class off the scale stuff? No. did they do their jobs and not do anything to put the Aussies to an advantage? Yes. If the team completes the sets, has a low penalty count and generally stay error free and still lose the game then question the half backs, until then its complete nonsense.

Very true.The last time we did those things in a big game against the big 2 was the 2011 4N against the Kiwis and Sinfield was exeptional.

We had around 40% of the ball in that second half on Sat. and most of that was in our own half.even the Aussie halves would struggle to impact a game on the back of that.for the record i thought Sinfield was one of our better players on the day but that wont stop people with an agenda against him pointing the finger at him when we lose as it was their de fault setting to do so before the competition even began.

Mate it was inevitable Sini would burden the blame of any England short comings.

If England had won would there still be so many people talking about Sinfield, I wonder?

For me, he was one of the best players on the park. Cool headed and did his job well. We lost because of selection issues, silly mistakes, head high tackles, knock ons and general poor defense. Oh, and the alleged best player in SL dropping the high ball (why put someone who can't catch in at fullback? Anyone? Anyone?)

How can we watch all that and then go on to try and blame Sinfield or to suggest that if he hadn't of been playing we would have won?

For me, the problem lies in the coach. Once again, reputation picked the side. As an example, Lunt should have been there instead of Roby.

Let's be honest, McNamara, who failed with the Bulls, is hardly the best man for the job. Is it realistic to expect the national side to win anything with him in charge, or shall we just continue to moan about Sinny?

We lost by 8 points. I'm not blaming Tomkins for the loss, but a class fullback would have resulted in two of the Aussie tries not being scored. Not sure how that is Sinfields fault.

Quite so.
Seeing Tomkins drop it in heavy traffic early on I thought the Aussies would pressure him under more high ball after that.

It was, with 10 minutes to go I was thinking no doubt Sinfield will get bashed for this.

Sinfield was the lazy barsteward that strolled towards the 40/20 and blamed to linesman for his lazy ass work. That was a disgrace by Charnley, you're in a test match, get there asap and run the ball back as far up field as physically possible to help your team, no excuse for strolling back and Charnley got what he deserved.

Bang on.

The problem is if not McNamara, then who?

Any coach with any reasonable reputation is not going to put that rep on the line in a thankless job. When the only measure of success / failure is whether you beat a team that is lightyears ahead of you both on and off the pitch, you're not going to have a mountain of CVs.

Surprised that Ablett has got a bit of stick. Although not outstanding, he got through his work ok. The only blot on his copy book was the silly penalty he gave away, but far from the worst performer. I'd have him in over Cudjoe, who I think had little impact on the game.

Sinfield looked good, especially after watching the replay. I didn't realise how dominant Hill and George were in that first 20 minutes. for me, Tom and Mossop didn't bring anything from the bench, and that's when we lost momentum.

Add Graham into the mix, and possibly O'loughlin, and I think the england pack looks pretty impressive

Oh, I totally agree. Sadly, far better coaches than McNamara have tried and failed. Just look at Tony Smith, for example.

I think the real issue here is in us thinking that we can realistically compete with the Aussies. Let's compare...We have a game played by a few folk who live along the M62 corridor, while in Aus, RL is almost a national sport. It's hardly a level playing field.

What's more, and to make the job even harder, we decide to dilute our national GB team down even further into England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

I doubt even with Superman in charge, we could win this, or any other world cup.

Cudjoe was solid in defence and scored a well-taken try, like the other 3/4s had limited opportunities partly because of lack of ball, partly the ground conditions, partly because they were up against a pretty decent defence . Certainly wouldn't pick Cudjoe out as better or worse than the other 3/4s.

Ablett, like all the rest of the subs, had little impact. Would still have him on the bench because of utility value. In our strongest team Graham and O'Loughlin should come in for Mossop and Tom Burgess (Graham to start, Sam Burgess second row, Hill and Westwood or Ferres bench). Roby should play 80.

I was expecting worst stick about Ablett to be fair when he gave away that penalty due to his already unpopular status from other fans.. But at least his wasn't as frustratingly annoying or needless as some of the others, particularly Westwood's. We were falling back under the cosh again at the time and after seeing Tomkins out jumped for one high ball you can maybe see why he tried to help his FB out.

With Ablett though, my worry was that they'll play him on the right side and they did. Whether it be 2nd row or centre I think Ablett has always looked better on the left side.

For me, McNamara has to make a brave decision on Gareth Widdop - either he plays him from the start or not at all.

Widdop is wasted from the bench, especially if he is being used to spell Roby. It completely reshuffles the halves, puts Sinfield into a less effective position at hooker and gives Widdop himself little time to get into the game and make an impact.

For me, the bench on Saturday (discounting the drinking issue) should have been Graham, T Burgess, O'Loughlin/Ablett and then one of McIlorum or Burrow. The latter two act as a straight replacement for Roby, in different ways, should you want to spell Roby whilst Burrow also offers cover for the positions that Widdop is there to cover.

That means that one of Widdop or Chase misses out.

I think some of the post-mortem doom and gloomk I've read around the intertubes is a bit over the top. I'm not sure how many scapegoats we should be looking for. It wasn't a bad performance.

Even allowing for the Ockers being a bit rusty, I thought we stepped up a level from 2008 and 2010. Realistically we weeren't going to wake up on Saturday morning and suddenly be the best team in the world. We lost a bit of control of the ball and our discipline in the 20 minutes or so either side of half time. Must do better, but I don't think that's personnel. More composure.

For me, there are now 2 objectives, assuming the rest of the group games are largely uneventful:

1) Try to beat a very good New Zealand side in the semi final. This would be a huge step forward form the last 2 world cups. I think we'll need to improve a bit on Saturday's effort, but I think this, while a tough ask, is an achievable target.

2) Live with the Aussies and compete for 80 minutes. Avoid silly mistakes and cheap penalties, and ask a few questions with all in hand (which we did on Saturday). Don't be overly conservative, but try to execute things right. Put ourselves in a position where we could prosper from a couple of iffy decisions or a slice or two of luck. Realistically, that's what it would take.

Personnel wise, Tom Burgess looked raw and lacked composure, but he's a big unit. I'd leave him in for the next couple of games to get some game time. He'll be better for it.

When players are available I'd bring O'Loughlin in for Ablett (who didn't do a lot wrong, but I'd want O'Loughlin in if he's fit and I thought Westwood, whil up and down gave us more than he cost us, and Ferres had some good spells) and bring Graham in for Mossop.

I don't watch NRL so I've only seen Widdop in an England shirt. Been a bit underwhelmed. In any case I think it should be him or Chase, not both. McIlorum to come off the bench, or another forward.