Samoa unlucky to lose and certainly puts England's result against them into perspective. A couple of dropped balls by their full back ultimately led to New Zealand victory. Leilua again proved himself a very hard player to stop when in full flight. Let's hope for an England victory tomorrow and then watch the Australian's get whitewashed next week by these impressive Samoan's.

www.nrl.com/parish-blasts-offici ... _HP_Latest Parish has a spray at match officials. Fair enough too. Samoa couldn't catch a break in the last 20.

www.nrl.com/parish-blasts-offici ... _HP_Latest Parish has a spray at match officials. Fair enough too. Samoa couldn't catch a break in the last 20.

As posted the other day, I had hoped and had a suspicion that Samoa might beat NZ. Sadly that has not happened. Would be nice if England and Samoa could beat Australia! However, I now expect Australia to thrash us.

Game turned when Roberts got harshly done for a knock on, but what the hell was he thinking!

That's Ben Roberts for you - rocks or diamonds. Unfortunately for Cas fans, it's 20 rocks for every diamond.

Yeah but in all fairness to him he one wow of a game, I am still of the idea that the pass he attempted went back and Vidot retained a legal ball on the ground, watch Vidot's reaction to the linesman he was apoplectic at the forward/knock on ruling.
Amongst many others I also thought that we should have won more emphatically before last weeks kick off. By the end of that game I also was under the impression that better side for its majority had lost, I also feel the same today.

Against a stronger NZ side than last weeks V Oz, Samoa outplayed them until the last quarter of an hour, when clearly there could also be noted, a bit of official help coming NZs way also. With one successful goalkick they would have made a draw of the game, something which they at least deserved for that performance.

Could have sworn I predicted the correct outcome.........just the margin I was out on. Or did NZ not win

Don't see this puts the English performance into perspective. I thought the Samoa team we played were a lot worse the pivots and passing In general last weak was very sloppy and they should have beaten us if their passing had been crisper in the first 20 minutes.

Would love to see us turn the Aussies over tomorrow. This is the weakest Aussie team I remember seeing and is our best chance of dumping them out of the competition. Hopefully we don't bottle it as there is nothing to be scared of from their line up. That said think they will go a lot better than last week

I agree this is a weak Aussie team but I'd also suggest it is a weak England team. Last time they fielded a much weakened team (SL wars) when they had a smaller pool to chose from they thrashed us. I can't see it being anything different this time.

Completely disagree. How is this a weak England team? Last time we played Australia we lost by 8 against a stronger side and we lost in the last minute to a Kiwi side that struggled against Samoa. England has nothing to fear...

Let's hope you are right!

Yep, and that's what killed 'em. To be fair that offload from Roberts in fantastic field position was insane but I suspect very few people saw it as forward or saw a knock-on except Perenara.

And - if you're reading this, RFL/NRL/RLIF people (as we know you do) - that is why all suspicion should be eliminated by appointing neutral refs.

A neutral ref may have given the exact same decisions - or indeed awarded a couple of the tries NZ almost scored - but neutrality removes any suspicion of impartiality and ensures the game retains the credibility it deserves. As it stands, and as many of us expected, several question marks hang over a number of key decisions. And when you've stuck a homegrown ref in there, that matters.

Spot on.

I expect the game in a few hours to be reffed in a way that benefits the Aussies. Just watch the holding down if England are close. It'll happen and it won't be penalised.

I think we can save.y say we are seeing the emergence of a closing of the gap between the big three and some of the second tier nations. Samoa, fiji, png and Tonga are not far away from toppling the big boys in years to come, especially as more eligible players take up places in the NFL and SL and png's new development t structures pays dividends. Just need to get france and Wales improving now.

They need to get more pacific islanders to be truly competitive...........

Well I never. It's almost like the Australians killing the sport is predictable.