Plastic Scots? They may not be much of a RL nation, but the entire squad are all qualified by at least a Grand Parent. The same cannot be said of either NZ or Australia, so A little surprising you pick out Scotland for eligibility criticism.

RL as a sport has to decided it wants to grow the international game and so we have a four nations rather than a tri nations. Fact is a "plastic" nation are about as likely to beat England as England are Oz. Do you remember England playing the plastic Italians a couple of years ago? Incidentally that England team was a bit "plastic" with Rangi Chase playing.

Will Scotland beat England or NZ - highly unlikely, but they earned the right to play in the competition on the field, winning that right over France, Wales, Ireland and Italy. Now it could be argued that England will not gain anything from playing them and that is difficult to dispute, but the same logic says Australia will gain little from playing England.

Do we actually want an international game? If we do then games against Scotland, France, Wales, Ireland, PNG and the South Sea Islands are necessary. You would be correct in describing these nations as second tier RL nations, but plastic is unfair, inaccurate and a little bit offensive.

The game hardly exists in Scotland, except on Park Fields and School Campuses.

Same goes for all the other plastic international teams, except maybe Wales.

RL is a Sydney, PNG, South Sea Island,M62, West Cumbria and a small area of France based sport. Let's get real.

What makes it worse is the NZ public don't really give 2 hoots about the sport neither. All their best players have to play in a competition out of their country.

If anything, Hodgson over played his role. You could see Luke Gale was a bit frustrated at times.

Thought exactly the same.

Nonsense. I have a died-in-the-wool All Blacks fan as a friend and though she prefers Unon she is allso passionate about the Kiwis RL side.

Haven't had chance to watch the game back yet, but on the day I thought T.Burgess was better than G.Burgess, and felt Cooper didn't really play his weight, seemed to get dominated when they ran at him, and didn't get through many tackles for a back rower. Agree with what's already been said with regards to Lomax, Sarginson, Gale and Bateman not being good enough. Although I agree he is grossly over-hyped. Surprised no one has mentioned Widdop's goal kicking, which kept us in the game. We weren't clinical enough if the first half but I can't believe we didn't go for the drop goal when we had the chance. I think we were well capable of knocking over the drop goal, driving up to the sticks and taking another. 6, 7 and 9 should be taking control there, not the forwards. I would go full strength against Scotland so we can rack up the biggest possible score to give ourselves a chance of making the final:

1. Sarginson - Lomax flashy but not tough enough yet IMO. Sarginson will get through a load of carries and won't fall off tackles so easily.
2. McGillvary - Awesome v NZ.
3. Watkins - Don't see what he did wrong v NZ, though he is generally over-hyped.
4. Percival - Sarginson isn't a centre IMO. Considered Bateman for his defence/niggle but I doubt he would give Hall quality ball either. Give Percival a chance.
5. Hall - Very good as always at this level.
6. Williams - I was disappointed with how quiet Gale was, and in a game where we had so much field position but failed to score that's pretty damning. Let's see if Williams can pose more of a threat.
7. Widdop - Was in two minds about whether he should have been picked but his goal kicking and NRL experience makes him a better option that Gale IMO.
8. Graham - Think he went well overall. As mentioned, others need to step up and take weight off him and S.Burgess.
9. Hodgson - I tend to overlook the contribution of hookers for some reason but don't recall him doing much wrong, and he got through plenty in defence.
10. T.Burgess - Seems to be getting criticised but I actually thought he went well tbh. Needs to be involved a bit more.
11. S.Burgess - Looked like he was trying to do too much as already mentioned but he did help the cause.
12. Whitehead - Not brilliant in attack but got through a lot in defence.
13. Hill - Went well, no issues. Just got him at loose as a third prop who is mobile in defence.

14. G.Burgess - Got knocked about a bit but seen enough from him in the past to know I'd want him in there.
15. Clark - Don't recall much either way from him. Can't have been on long.....?
16. Farrell - Bateman was disappointing. He has had some cracking battles with Peacock so not sure it is a size thing. Farrell has gone fairly well an international level before and had a cracking GF so deserves a run. Knows how to find a clean break too which could be big in a tight game, particularly if he's coming on fresh against tired forwards.
17. Taylor - Haven't seen it back but on the day Cooper looked too easily dominated IMO. Taylor should have been in there in the first place after his game against France, and still should be. Don't leave him on too long because I don't think he would cope with the speed, but a couple of 10 min cameos giving Graham a rest could be very effective if we keep the ball most of the time.

I thought Cooper was more effective going forward than Sam Burgess.

Sarginson and Watkins were both hopeless.
Watkins has to be the most over hyped players at this level ever.
Is he related to Leon or Karl Pryce?

I meant defensively to be honest. For one I recall the NZ number 13 going straight over the top of him at one stage and nearly scoring but for Lomax zipping in and wrapping the ball up. I seem to be in the minority with regards to Cooper so may change my mind after I've watched it back.

Watkins made 28 tackles in the match, missing 1. Only the starting forwards had more defending to do than he did. By comparison Sarginson made 11 tackles (also missing 1).
Watkins was only given the ball 9 times.

Do you think by any chance, that these two factors might combine to show a) Why he didn't have the biggest impact on the game offensively, and b) That he was far from hopeless as the (apparently) vastly superior NZ centre came at him all game and didn't get past him.

This witch hunt on Watkins is ridiculous.

Not according to Leeds fans. He's just hard done by

On threads like these absolutely. Minds were made up before the game that he wasn't going to do anything of value and it seems plenty are delighted that he didn't have the chance to show his footwork.

If you move away from biased opinion (biased in both directions) and look at simple, indisputable facts then I think it becomes absolutely evident that the scorn being directed at him is unjust.

He made 28 tackles. 28. TWENTY EIGHT. With just one miss - so his defensive deficiencies are clearly vastly overstated.

A centre shouldn't have to deal with that sort of defensive workload - the other centres completed 9, 10 and 11.

Do you think that you can maybe take your blinkers off for long enough to recognise that that is going to impact on the offensive side of his performance?

You don't do your argument any good by lumping Leon Pryce and his spectacularly under-achieving brother together into the same category

Spot on and the ones thhat have been on his case are from the smaller West Yorkshire clubs because he plays for Leeds.

He was solid in defence but didn't see hardly any ball come to him in attack and he's ripped to pieces. Meanwhile the praise for McGillvary is way OTT, he had a decent game but some are making out as if he was amazing which is a big exaggeration. Scored one yes but blew another chance by unnecessarily trying to run over his opposite winger who was struggling to get across, instead of darting to the corner flag like Hall did for his score.

Personally don't think Watkins had a bad game on Sat BUT he had to catch that speculator from McGillvary - he almost seemed surprised that it came towards him. At this level, those kind of chances need to be taken. Also thought Cooper was one of our stronger runners when he came on tbf.

I don't know if it's been mentioned but Johnson actually missed with the drop goal. Just watched it again and paused the action at the time the ball passes the post. It clearly goes the wrong side of the post. Whoops

Nope not heard that one



I'll go check the footage again

It's been mentioned, but anyone who thinks it did is clearly desperate

Watkins got through a lot of tackling against NZ.

Wow no need for that. To be honest I don't give two shakes of a rats willy about the result.
I came across a video showing it on face book. So thought I'd check it out
from original version. It definitely looks like it missed.
Thought people might be interested that's all jeez

I think the thing that affects Watkins is the hype! When Sinfield is saying he's second only to Inglis as the worlds best centre before the game you then expect a performance fitting if that tag. We then get a guy who's decent at this level (doesn't let anyone down but doesn't terrorise teams as a centre of that billing should) and he gets bagged.

The reality is that he's massively over-rated. That's not to say he shouldn't be in the England team because of course he should but I think people need to stop expecting him to side step his way past seven men and fling out a 15 yard pass to send his winger in.

Couldn't agree more, we don't have anyone better, but we need to be realistic about the limitations of some of our players, especially where they have been over hyped. Part of the problem is the SL coverage which "talks up" players, and to be fair that is part of the job of people like Eddie & Stevo and the rest of the crew (employers don't tend to employ people who tell everyone their product isn't terribly good). Gale is "world class" when he tears through Wakefield's defence, Watkins is the "best centre in SL" when he beats three Salford defenders to score etc... but the reality is that the Aussie and Kiwi sides are orders of magnitude above the caliber of teams that make players like Gale and Watkins and others look so good in SL. Depending on who plays for England on Saturday I expect them to become "world class" again against Scotland. I'm reminded of the 2010 Four Nations, Atkins plays centre against the Aussies and is cruelly exposed, next game Clubb starts against PNG and score four tries!

pretty much this.

Same for me. However, should we blame Dave Woods and co. for generating hype? It's a frequent beef that the game and its stars lack profile and it's difficult to see that changing if even friendly media were to deliver entirely honest assessments. And Watkins certainly deserves no blame in this; a more self-effacing individual you could not wish to meet.

No harm in generating hype, and I think there are enough stories within the England set-up to justify generating it. One of the best coaches in the world? Tick. One of the best forwards in the world? Tick. One of the best hookers in the world. Tick. You've got to PR the heck out of this and generate as much of a buzz as possible. Although I agree about the Sinfield's comments reg Watkins - second best centre in the world my backside...