The game against Australia on Sunday in Melbourne (AAMI Park, capacity 31,000) is the greatest chance England has to make the final. It is hard to imagine this England team beating New Zealand the following week on current form. But England still has to improve a lot to beat Australia, especially since Australia will improve at least a little. No reason to doubt that superstar Gregory Inglis will be back and in better form. He had a virus yesterday which should be well behind him by next weekend.

The injury to Daly Cherry Evans means that Ben Hunt of Brisbane Broncos will be the new half. Cronk and Hunt will be an interesting combo. Ben Hunt is a dangerous attacker. England must prepare for his dummies.

However Australia still has to figure out how to rectify its weakness in the front row. I suspect that they will have a lot of trouble handling the Burgess twins, James Graham and Chris Hill. England must exploit that advantage. Samoa had two huge aggressive forwards in Frank Pritchard and Mose Masoe. Australia doesn't have anyone like that.

No need to panic on the England halves. They are a new combination which will be better for the first experience.

The key is going to be the England back row, which everyone on this board agrees is inadequate. Sean O'Loughlin and Elliot Whitehead are the logical choices for improving the England back row. Steven McNamara recognises the first, but does he recognise the second?

This will be a prime time Sunday afternoon audience in Australia. So many of the England team are now known quantities in Australia and New Zealand. Expect a huge TV audience to evaluate the quality of English rugby league.

If Australia lose they are out of the final. So expect them to fight as hard as possible. If England lose they still have another chance against New Zealand, but it will be a harder task to achieve a win against the Kiwis than against the Aussies.

Not necessarily. For all we know, Samoa are awesome and we did really well to beat them! They could beat New Zealand and leave a decider in Aus...!

We should at the very least be able to make it a tight game but i am loathe to say too much or get too hopeful after the 2004 3 nations final humiliation after all the build up and false hope that went with that.

I will look forward to it and be pleasantly surprised if we do it but am still expecting us to get beaten.

If England Play Tomkins at full back we will lose.

Australia have a better kicking game than Samoa.

Hardaker at full back makes us much more sound defensively.

I would like to see Tomkins playing either at half back with Widdop backing up holes we should tear up against the Aussie forwards or coming off the bench and between him , Smith and Clark swapping the hooking / dummy half duties.

Between the three of them we would cause Australia some major problems around the ruck area.

Whitehead has to play as well

Ok so we've had:

Keep Tomkins at full-back
Move him to stand-off
Play him at centre (where he's never played in his life)
Drop him completely

And now bring him off the bench as an interchange hooker





Jeez, talk about a knee-jerk reaction. How many losses was Tomkins responsible for playing for NZ Warriors?

Sean O'L and Whitehead in.

Can't imagine Aussies will play as bad again...even if they are stripped of their better players.

Really hoping for the best but fear Aussies will pip us by a score.

Basically, anywhere but full back is what people are saying, just like many were saying when he played full back for Wigan.
Apart from Kevin Sinfield and Leeds, who loved ST playing full back for Wigan

Is that the Leeds that won a grand total of 3 games out of 12 against Wigan when Tomkins played fullback?

That's right, which 3 were they?

Tomkins hasn't played anywhere but FB for 4 seasons now, and he's always had weaknesses that were off set by his attacking strengths. He's improved his positional play massively in the last couple of years but in all the time he's been playing FB his inability to deal with high kicks is something that's been increasingly exposed, now to be fair to him, every player will make a mistake and because of the nature of the position he plays he'll never be completely mistake free. However, his continued habit of not trying to catch the ball on the full is a big problem that seems to be getting worse. He's like Richie Mathers on a bad day sometimes when the ball goes in the air.
Also, he doesn't seem to carry the ball back with the same danger he did a couple of seasons ago. His link up platy is still top notch but the other areas of his full back play don't seem to be improving at al, and to be honest now would be a good time for NZ to move him back into the halves where I think he can be more effective.

Do you not know?

What I can tell you is that it wasn't the 2 play-off semi final eliminators or the CC Final he won.

Wasn't one of the main reasons that he moved to FB in the first place because to take him out of the defensive line? If he moved to the halves and had to defend in the line out wide against opposition centres & 2nd rows targeting him do you think he'd be up to the task nowadays? Your halves are always going to be the vulnerable link in defence but some more suspect than others.

Both these team are going to have to play a whole lot better to get the win, its whoever has the most improvement in them!

think we need to bring in o'loughlin and whitehead.

leave tomkins at full back, i thought he played well against samoa, some of his positional sense was brilliant and saved a couple of tries at least. the tackle on pritchard was enough to take his momentum away and saved the game.

is inglis going to be back for oz?

I think it was mainly because of the style introduced by Maguire and the injury to Roberts. It made sense given Tomkins attributes and the fact that we had Deacon and Leuluai. When he did defend in the line he was always scrappy and tenacious often making several tackles in a row from marker, I think he'd be ok but don't see the point in splitting up a half back pairing who looked promising. Can't we have some consistency for once?

I don't see Whitehead as the great white hope everyone else does either. He's the worst of the lot defencively and hasn't had much experience at all in big games. The main problem against Samoa was the ball retention and penalties in the first half. England completed more than 90% of their sets in the 2nd half but the damage had been done in having to defend 50 more tackles in the first half so they're obviously going to be more tired.

What we need to do is pressure the kicker. Hill did it well and O'Loughlin will too but others need to step up. Same with the line speed and aggression in defence.

The only change I'd consider is starting Ferres. He is bigger than Farrell and Farrell did seem to struggle to impose himself in defence. Maybe put Whitehead on the bench but I think Farrell deserves the chance. Joel was fine, found the floor in attack and slowed them down without the ball.

If we lose this I don't think we'll make the final so I think the best thing to do is stick with the players who've played, barring O'Loughlin, and hope they've blown the cobwebs away and are ready to finally beat australia again.

I think people seem to have forgotten that Sam made a number of try saving tackles, including bringing Dow on of their 2nd rowers when clean through.

He does need to work on taking command of the high ball, and his team also need to work on providing more protection.

Both Beale and Inglis dropped bombs which directly lead to tries, should they both lose their places in the NZ and Australia teams.

This clamour to remove Tomkins is bizarre, he played well yesterday, made a number of try saving tackles, cleaned up a few kicks and joined the line well.

Samoa are good. However it is most unlikely that Samoa could beat New Zealand given the strength of the NZ forwards, and their great superiority in the halves, and in goal kicking. Samoa's strength lies in its tremendously talented three quarter line and the "big unit" forwards Frank Pritchard and Mose Masoe. NZ can handle that, despite the fact that NZ are missing two first choice great props Jared Wharea-Hargreaves and Samuel Moa.

New Zealand are on course for the final and it is up to England and Australia next weekend to determine who will face New Zealand in the final.

Gerard Beale should never have been in the NZ team on the wing, and his dropped bomb, which led to an Australian try, was proof of that. Gregory Inglis on the other hand was sick with a virus, and feeling dizzy, which is why he never came back for the 2nd half. Inglis should never lose his place in an Australian team.

Inglis told Sheens he was OK to play, therefore he's accountable for his error!

All players will tell their coach they're good to play so pretty hard to tell as coach. Had Sheens had more of a full strength team to choose from he might've thought he could afford to drop Inglis for this one, as it was though he was already missing enough players that he'll have felt like he needed to take a risk.......perhaps that tells us where Australia are with this squad selected for this tournament, that the coach felt like he needed to take such a risk.

Think much depends on the Aussie mindset next week. Obviously they aren't as serious about this as they were the WC otherwise so many players wouldn't have dropped out......but if the players left feel a bit 'meh' about the tournament and their chances (even if they beat England do they think they won't beat NZ in the final) then it is very conceivable that they lose next weekend IF (and I admit it's a big IF) Engalnd execute and complete properly.

If Sam Burgess was available and O'Loughlin fully fit (he'll probably play but won't be at 100% most likely) then I'd say England would actually start favourites.....as it is I'd go Aus as narrow favourites on home soil.

Benjamin and Christopher, surely Jeany?

Nope and don't have the inclination to go looking either, but I do remember him more or less gifting us a CC match and a play off game by making some pretty embarrassing clangers at full back.

Not too dissimilar to what he did at the weekend actually.

He should clearly be in the first 13 for England every time, just not at full back and that's pretty obvious to anyone who doesn't live in Wigan, and Steve Mcnamara.

I don't remember the play off game you speak off. Are you not getting mixed up with his replacement for the night (Tomkins was injured) Jack Murphy who made a couple if errors including one that gifted Leeds 2 points for a victory.

He plays fullback for the NZ warriors as well and was moved in to the fullback position by a guy who's just coached South Sydney to their first GF success in decades.

I wouldn't be against him going in the halves but he's far far away from being some sort of liability at fullback. He did some exceptional things in defence on Saturday and saved us a few times. I'm a huge Hardaker fan aswell though and would love to see him in the team on Saturday. Fitting them both in is a problem though.

You clearly don't remember as none of that happened either.

Just for further clarity as you seem to like digging a hole for yourself, Leeds record with Tomkins as fullback is:

Overall Record:
Played 12 - Won 3 = 25%

Sudden death/knockout games:
Played 4 - Won 1 = 25% (out those games Leeds went on to win zero trophies, Wigan won 3)

Yes I can see why you were so happy to point out Leeds liked him playing fullback.

Thought before the tournament Hardaker 1, Tomkins 6, Widdop 7 was the way to go, but Smith was probably MotM on Saturday, so is hardly going to get dropped even if it makes sense for the team.

The other option is putting Hardaker on the wing and switching him to fullback with Tomkins on the wing for defensive sets.

As with Australia when they had Slater/Inglis/Hayne, just because your best players play the same club position doesn't mean some of them should be left out. You get them in the team wherever you can.