Give over this is England not local rivalry!

Think Lee Smith has got away with murder this afternoon.

no one could blame either of the briscoes for trys concede today.any winger would have been exposed with the shocking inside cover by smith etc.,n shaun was left 2/3 on 1 to often.
id sooner see t briscoe at centre than smith,who been rara bound shouldnt be there anyway

Come off it, you know the rules on here: never pass up an opportunity to score cross-city points. Its the law.



Lee Smith looked fine on the wing, I expect him to keep both T.Briscoe and Fox out of next weeks side.

smith can only play with the ball in hand n cant defend.and hes rara bound

None of that will come into the coaches selection plans.

no not with tony i love leeds smith.maguire will prob start as well.

Possibly not. He will shift somebody out to make room for his new Warrington scrum half.

After seeing Tom Brisco on two or three occasions,i am sure he is going to be a top class player for years to come, however,in a game of this magnitude ,he was always going to be targeted by the Ausies because of his inexperience at this level.
In my opinon,he needs a few more international games against lesser oposition before he been pitched against,probably the best team in the world, he was left terribly exposed today by the first line of defence as was Shaun Brisco during the first half.
when you play the best teams in the world,you need your best and most experienced players out on the pitch, if England produce the type of rugby league they displayed in the second half today,against Newzealand next week then i believe we have a very good chance of beating them.
As regards Tom Brisco, he will be a better player for the experience he gained today, it will serve him well for the future i am sure.

Way more than any of the deluded and idiotic FC fans in denial.

In denial about what, exactly?

If he is supposed to be building for the future then, it most certainly should do!!!.

Disgraceful decision by Tony Smith to take Briscoe off at half time, he's basically said, "We're 0-26 and it's all your fault Tom".

I really hope the lad's as grounded as he seems and that this doesn't affect his confidence.

The Aussies slacked off and cruised the second half, that's the only reason why it didn't turn out to be 60 nil.

Anyone with any honour would go, Smith had our defensive pattern set up as an umbrella within the forwards and a sliding back line defence. Utter f-ing madness.

Agree totally. The first try when Lockyer found Inglis in 10 metres of free space should have rang alarm bells. The Ozzies did enough first half, we wont see them miss touch from a pen or knock on a drop out when it matters.

Even in the first half the Austarlians did not play with the intensity that they did against NZ, though I suppose England saw very little of the ball ( and then squandered it) to build any pressure.

This afternoon's game is proof of just how ridiculas the Tom Briscoe verses Fox debate.

The hard evidence proved the harsh reality that Tom Briscoe was way, way out of his depth as an international winger and for any FC fan to claim that it was a mistake to bring him off at half-time is nothing shirt of pathetic considering the hard evidence of a second-half scoreline of 16-0 is total vindication that it was the correct decision.

Whilst I partially agree with FC fans that Briscoe "did nothing wrong" and Smith was for the more at fault in terms of defensive positioning, Tom Briscoe does not have the pace to counter long-range threats or neither the agility to turn quick enough to defend short-range kicks which made the Aussie game-plan easy.

In last weeks game against France, Tom Briscoe's lack of agility was exposed when Bosc put a kick through for Pelo and he took an age to turn and it was so obvious to anyone that the Aussie game-plan would be to kick behind Tom Briscoe knowing that by the time he recovered the ball, the defensive line would be smothering him, leaving England on the back foot without any chance of an effective "exit set".

Had Fox played in that position today, whilst he like Tom Briscoe couldn't have done anything about Smith's woeful positioning, the Aussies long range threat is nullified. For instance, where Tom Briscoe was making minimal gain on Inglis, Fox would have cut him down.

I think today's game proved that English players aren't all that bad as they are made out to be with Crabtree proving his worth (to many on this site who said he wouldn't) and also big raps to Westwood who proved me wrong.

If England are to win the final (should they beat NZ) then they have to nullify the the Aussies long-range threat, and if they are to do that properly, then Fox [ihas[/i to play.

The sad thing is, many FC fans would have been happy to leave Tom Briscoe on the pitch and see us get annihilated by 60+ just to save face.

Whilst posting the above thread, to see people criticising Tony Smith for taking of Tom Briscoe is laughable, when the scoreboard is proof in the pudding

tl;dr: Fox is faster than Briscoe
on that basis lets get Kevin Penny in the squad over Briscoe, he could probably catch him too

what a joke

Offiah in his prime could have been on that wing and it'd have made no difference. Briscoe was left stranded by his centre consistently.

but I suppose in your deluded world Fox would have played, scored 20 tries and England would have won

No the hatrick would done the trick.

I see the truth hurts for some FC fans.

As I said, I'm not criticising his positional play as that was Smith's fault.

I'm saying his lack of athletic ability was exposed and exploited in terms of his lack of pace and agility and if you can't see that, then you really know nothing about how important the back-three's (i.e. 2 wingers and full-back) role is in modern-day RL.

i dont agree, firstly, maguire and smith was way out of posistion defensively and secondly you have to forget that inglis is a freak of nature rugby wise, even if was fox, penny, offiah or dwayne chambers he would of still scored under the posts because he is just that good, the way he runs is very decieving, he probably wasnt even in second gear!
no-one would of got near him and even though we did beat them second half i think that was more down to eastmond coming on and tomkins deciding to show up, not the fact that briscoe is out of his depth.eatmond in for maguire next week i say!!!

Totally agree.

However, you obviously don't understand the important role the back three (i.e. 2 wingers & full-back) play in modern RL.

australia had hayne (dally m 2009) full back for paramatta on the wing today.