I said at the game that there'd be someone who would blame Tomkins for the defeat. Good to see that RLFANS doesn't disappoint.

I thought he kicked well, Wilkin and Chase both ballsed up a few kicks.

I thought it was one of the worst long kicking games I've ever seen from Kevin Sinfield, particularly long kicking...he wasnt getting enough length on them or turning the full back or wingers around. Lockyer and Thurston were doing this every time.

Isnt that funny! I new this thread would be up the minute he dropped/missed the bomb and didnt go the length of the field against the best team in the world. I also new the knives would be out for sinfield because he didn't crap a miracle everytime he got the ball under massive defensive pressure from the best team in the world.


It's all pretty pathetic really.

so it was tomkins fault we got back into the game against aus at wembley! plus the fact he ripped the kiwis apart last week. But I know, lets rip sam apart and blame him for a 22 point swing eh?

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I'm not blaming him in anyway for the loss tonight, too many players didn't perform, but surely this must put the 'best fullback in the world' talk to bed once and for all. The only way he could lay claim to that, is to go to the NRL and prove himself week in week out.

This is all spot on. I'd add that our kicking game was terrible because the Aussies, to their credit, pressured the hell out of it, while we let Thurston and Lockyer have all the time they wanted to choose where to put their kicks.

Too many otherwise excellent players (not just Tomkins, but also Ellis, Sinfield, Roby and others) had bad games for it to be assumed that the problem is anything but systemic.

This must be a joke. Sinfield was seriously awful all night.

Rubbish. In the same way Tomkin couldn't be effective what was sinfield supposed to produce kicking out of his own 25/30 Time and time again. When we did manage to get out of our own half he was under intense pressure from the best defence in the world pretty much everytime he got the ball.

Your post is based on agenda and not actually what happens in the game.

Sinfield gave us a poor kicking game. Much of our attacking play was poor because of him, he is not a quick enough physically or mentally to play 6 at this level. He is not a quick enough thinker in this position, we totally lacked organisation (partly his responsability).

I said it at the start of the tournament.

We have the number 6 sitting on the bench who started all year for the team who finished top of the NRL, he is a young player and we should be building for the 2013WC. Widdop should be the 6 not Sinfield.

What has Tomkins got to do with this? He was totally out of the game, but my post was about Sinfield.

It's a thread about who's to blame. Basically some silly fools are saying it was Tomkin. Instead of fans just saying rubbish it was many variables others just as foolish have said it's sinfield.

it's reactive fools posting rubbish. Probably with a few drinks in em and as you have admitted you had an agenda pre tournament.

I would rather be proved wrong. I want him to do well in an England shirt. I did not will him to fail.

Sinfield is NOT good enough, he is miles behind the aussie half-backs. Like I said, Widdop goes toe to toe with these players every week and has looked pure class at times. Sinfield is not good enough, he proved it tonight. His first few kicks said it all, Thurston put in a quality kick to grab a try, Sinfield had the same chance and kicked it dead.

Sinfield has been a standout performer for England and was one of the better players tonight. Lockyers fist too passes were shocking tonight and thurston through some drivel too. They are 2 of the greats and even they had a few dodgy moments. You pick sinfield out and say he's not good enough. He's prove plenty of times he is. But that will never be good enough for you.

Because you post foolish rubbish which is agenda based.

That does not even deserve a response really. You are a Leeds fan, he is a Leeds player. He has not proved it plenty of times on the international stage. He has played best when at hooker IMO, it allows him to organise but he is never a 6. You are the only person I have come across who thinks he has been a standout performer. Deary me.

I am making my judgement on what is infront of me.

You can carry on in your mind and try and convince me he has been 'a standout performer' but you won't change my mind. I will go with the majority on this one.

The players to blame for the loss are Sinfield and Chase! Whole point of bringing in Sinfield is for his kicking game and it was shocking all he had to do was take a leaf out of Briers book from the week before and we would of been able to Australia under substantial pressure. As for Chase he isn't a team player and he is too slow\indecisive in spreading the ball. All needed to do is look how Wigan involve Sam and mirror that. I lost count the number of times head ignored. This says alot about the coach tbh. Also Widdop should start every game!

I agree, wilkin isn't good enough at international level but has held his own this year in the four nations. I've been Wilkins biggest critic over the past four years but even I have admitted he's had a very good 2011 and looked more like the wilkin of 2006 when he looked to have the world at his feet.

I also question if ben Westwood is good enough at this level, he's looked out of his league and not the player he is at super league level.

I'd also class o'loughlin as not being good enough on the international stage. He's to slow and to small at this level and finds himself being hammered nearly every time he touches the ball and gives far to many pens away which will be punished by kiwi or Aussie side.

Locker tho, IMO is a very good club man, he's Wigan thru and thru and would die for Wigan. He never gives anything less than 100%.

We were beaten by a team that did their homework on our better players, our pack and particularly Sam. Our flanks were extremely lethargic all game and Reed was totally anonymous which surprised me. Briscoe & Yeaman were the worst - Had they been pushing up with Ryan Hall when he passed to them we would have had a half chance on the left early on. These aren't to blame individualy for the loss but these type of examples contributed to giving the Aussies the upper hand.

The difference between the teams was the kicking game last night. Australia were putting in effective attacking kicks from good field position, wheras Sinfield was having to kick on the back of some pretty poor field position due to some very strong defence from the Aussies. The Aussies did nothing special last night, they were just very effective at what they did do and worked tirelesly to get the ball back off us. Sam wasn't given an inch which nullified him but to suggest he should be moved to 6 is utter garbage. Sam Tomkins needs a strong pack to be effective and he didn't get that last night. He is 2nd only to Billy Slater as the best full back in the world - He proved that during this tournament. (Brett Hodgson is a cracking full back and I remember the shocker he had in the CC semi this year - Still didn't make him a bad player). The whole England squad had an off night tonight and the Aussies were there for the taking which is frustrating but lets not forget that England destroyed the Kiwis a week ago !

I have been a big critic of Mcnamara but at least he is English and as stated in an earlier post, he has put some decent things in place. The biggest error Mcnamara made was not giving Widdop more game time.

Peacock made some good points in an interview and I agree that we aren't a million miles away anymore. A few tweaks are required that is all. The future of English RL looks far more rosier than it did 5 years ago and we have some promising young players coming through.

All in all I have enjoyed the performances from all the players and to have been able to watch the games with optimism has been a breath of fresh air.

Simply not good enough from 1-17 and beaten by a better team that can up their performance late in a game and do just enough to win. Yes Tomkins had a few moments in the first half, and some great catches in the 2nd half. Blaming individual players is bitter, biased, and quite pathetic really.

Where is the criticism of Hall for that stupid pass in the first mins? JJB awful offload near his own line, Yeaman and Briscoe sometimes lack of concentration, some poor kicks from the half backs that often went straight into the hands of Boyd or Uate with acres of space, gifted ball to Reed that was squandered straight away.

There were so many errors (and many were Tomkins wasnt even involved) by many players last night. No one individually is to blame, as a team they are simply not good enough.

I was at the game, and agree in many ways with what dubairl said. It's probably the way he put it that was wrong.
6,7 and 9 are the game controllers, and sadly neither of our three did that last night. They didn't have particularly poor games and nobody can deny their effort. How many times have we tried a loose forward at stand off (Farrell, Sculthorpe, Sinfield). Our kicking game was abysmal.
Everytime Sam caught (or attempted to catch) the ball he had two Aussies contesting the ball or a line of Aussies waiting for for him to return it. When it was the other way round the Ausies had a free catch, under no pressure whatsoever.

Some of our decision making was terrible. Hall's pass in his own 20, Graham the same, JJB the same, all little things but plays that were unnecessary and invite pressure.
Ellis dropped the ball and then misses his next tackle (Aussie score)
Fourth try (I think) Carvell and another English forward get left on the floor at the ptb. The Aussies moved the ball to their right and immediately to where one of those should have been defending, they hadn't got up and left a huge hole in the defence.

100% for effort but we're not clever/crafty enough and that starts from 6, 7 and 9.

We can debate who was at fault or which individual did this or that till the cows come home but the sad fact is no one player cost us that game last night. Our problems against them are far more deep routed then the 17 players who took to the field not being good enough. Our league isn't good enough and it doesn't install the discipline and basics in our players like the NRL does in there's. In our league you have plenty of weeks where you can get away with a lazy kick chase or being slack at marker but you can't do that in the NRL and certainly not in Origin. They are conditioned to do all the little things at 100mph at all times whereas our lads aren't. We didn't get beaten by pace, agility, power etc last night but by basic skills of hard tackling, accurate passing, a fantastic kick chase and general game awareness of when to stick and when to twist by the Australians. We looked poorly coached as well with no organisation in defence but especially in our attacking structure with our lads playing on pure effort alone. They were like a well oiled machine in comparison and it was uncanny watching their attacking structure after watching us at Wigan copy it for the past couple of years.


Overall and to sum up to improve we need to change. The RFL should have been ruthless a few months back when they found out Crusaders were pulling out and took that chance to cut the league back to a 12 team competition. We don't have enough good players or teams to service a 14 team comp and some clubs are really letting the game down at the minute. I'd personally be putting huge pressure on Wakey and HKR to come up with some answers as to why they're using their 3 year licences to fill their sides up with 12/13/14 foreign players and awful ones at that. Also things seem to have gone very quiet on the stadium development front for clubs like Wakey and Cas now they have licences. That happened last time and these clubs are basically cheating the system.

Anyway going away from the issue there but things must change. If they don't I'll be sat posting this sort of thing every year or so.

The only reason fans ever see a need to blame an individual for a team loss is because they have an agenda against that player. You never see fans blame their own players at international level, just those of your rivals. Despite the countless other mistakes by most of the players, a few like to single out Sam and completely forget about all the rest.

Sorry but Hall had every right to pass that ball as there was a 3 on 1 opportunity. We should be looking to attack from any position on the field and Hall had that in mind and IMO had Yeaman & Briscoe not been holding a mothers meeting we would probably found ourselves at the other end of the field.

The Aussies also have a group of players that play together for 3 very intense games in the Origin series. Im not sure of the make up but I bet the Roo's are predominantley Queenslanders ?

The pass was awful and Yeaman and Briscoe wernt even in position, so I dont see how he had every right to pass that. Yes Yeaman and Briscoe should have been in postion but they wernt and that doesnt mean you throw a stupid pass. Its nothing to do with who has the right, it was a poor pass to 2 guys who wernt even in position. So I would criticise all 3 of them.