Beaten by Lebanon.... some of the players playing just don’t seem to be able to adapt to the 9s way of playing, all the space and widdop just constantly looking to kick - poor kicks at that.

Absolute rubbish! Neither team selection or tactics suited to 9’s. Plus, 20 secs on the clock, what the hell is Handley doing spending 15 of them trying to play for a penalty?! You’re not playing for Leeds now, the ref won’t give you a penalty because of the colour of your shirt!

Well said Daryl!

SJ is a freak at 9's.......australia are dominant, but SJ is the best player on show....

England are getting utterly humiliated.

England looked terrible there. Too big!!

Continuous casual racism by the commentators, constantly referring to England as “the Poms” yoy would not teger to a Jamaican team as the N***s or An Indian team as the W*gs but then again its Australia would expect no less than that backwards bigoted nation.

Austin and the likes can f**k off they are not English or British and do not want to know, playing for an off season bonus. Utter crap.

Lack of skills in the England side

As the Australians are not interested in international RL all the home nations should have boycotted the tournament anyway. Send out a message to arrogant ARL they are/gave ruined internatiobal RL so why should we only play when it suits them.

I don't get why we went so big. We seemed to try to play one-up rugby which is never going to be effective in that format, especially if you don't offload. You know you're knackered in 9s when you're using Williams to take in a hit-up straight at the kiwi line.

I thought Tomkins looked our best halfback, can't see what Austin brings ahead of him based on that tournament. I backed the selection of McGillvary but he's looked well off the pace, struggling with basic things like knocking a ball dead, and coming back inside when the ball carrier runs him out of space.

Great day one for the men and women no so much today.

Lacked genuine pace in the men’s side. Hall and McGilvery great in the 13 a side game but not speedsters anymore.

Would like to have seen Gildart, Liam Marshall, Makinson or Charnley in that format

4 props
2 oversize wingers
3 halfbacks

Swapped a prop for a halfback mid way....

Not a pacey 3/4 in sight.
What was the coach staff thinking?

Well Chris Kendall just pretty much gave the title to Australia with a terrible call there. No idea how they gave that try, I could tell in real time Feldt lost the ball.

Spot on, Bennett has been very naive with this 9s comp.

We played Test Match cricket in a 20/20 match.

Why pick props? Then pick 3 and 3 halfbacks and 2noversize wingers who are out of form and slow?

Ridiculous in my opinion, we should have played a normal team without a 6, without the props and the 13. We should have thrown it around more and kept the ball alive but we seemed to want to play the percentages and the game was over before they had chance to do anything. The worst part is we had zero speed, does Bennett watch Superleague? By the his squad picks I doubt he does.

Theres umpteen players in Superleague who would have done well in 9s but not so well in the 13 a side 80 game.

Players with speed like Liam Marshall, Oliver Gildart, Dan Sarginson, Mark Percival, Tommy Makinson, Adam Swift, Josh Charley, Nial Evalds, Josh Griffin, Jake Bibby, Stefan Ratchford, Brad Dwyer, Mike McMeekin, Joel Tomkins, Ryan Hampshire, Johnny Lomax, Joe Burgess, Zak Hardaker, Jamie Shaul, Jack Walker, Danny Kirkmond,

Yep. The only reason I can think of for going with the team he has is he’s going to use most of them in the test series and is using the 9’s as warm up

Pom isn't a derogatory term. It is equivalent to you saying Aussie - which we don't have any problem with.
In fact, my father was born in Cambridge, and my nickname for many years was little pom, because my father was big pom - and it never even occurred to me to be insulted by that.

Or it’s a cost saving exercise.

Offensive or not, it's not the same as calling you guys Aussies. That would surely be calling us Brits? Pom is rhyming slang for immigrant isnt it?

Good to see he's exporting his undoubted skills down under, after trashing Salford at OT.

Property Of (his/her) Majesty.....deported convicts.

Samuel Tomkins, formerly of Wigan Warriors, now with the Catalans Dragons, was the star of the England side, and showed why he is one of the greatest open field attacking players that England has ever produced. Only the immortal Roger Millward comes to mind as a better attacking half. What a pity that Australians and New Zealanders did not see the best of him during his injury hampered NRL years.

Samuel Tomkins is truly sublime in attack, and worth every euro that M. Guasch paid for his services.

Great post! Until I saw kirkmond mentioned mind

I had to throw another Yarkshire player in for appeasement purposes. He was the only one off the top of my head and I based it on previous seasons.

I just want to know wtf Kirkmond is.