Yawn. Sick to death of English fans using that as an excuse.

Anyway, if you had a "[ineutral[/i" ref - one who wasn't concerned about the look of the thing - you would have been playing with 12 from the 9th minute. Calling the ref "you f***ing cheating c***" is a send off every day of the year. Sutton [imight[/i have missed a high tackle on Widdop (although I thought it came up off the shoulder), but he took the cowards way out by not marching the ear-biting serial bully Graham.

One thing nobody else seems to have mentioned is our decision not to take the 2 points when they were offered. I know field position is a paramount, but we weren't struggling for yards, and it would have perhaps settled some of the nerves, especially when we had the ball in an attacking position

I heard that but couldn't see who that was directed too. Could've easily been said to an Aussie player.

Gutted but happy with the effort. On the plus side Cronk, Slater & Smith won't be there next time round, they will find someone but will be pushed to find as good. To me the Ausie spine had all the advantages with a couple of hundred games playing in the same side. I just wish we had centre in Batemans place (he would be great at 11 or 12 not out there I felt for Hall as he got no service at all. Taylor would have been a better change player than Highington as well. But happy with the effort if not the score line. How we missed our captain.

He was looking straight at Sutton when he said it.



Edit: sorry, wasn't Sutton it was the touchie.

Wouldn't surprise me if it was aimed at Slater. They've got history and seemed to have a little run in later in the game.

We were equally as brilliant and frustrating.



Absolutely gutted!



Not clinical enough despite being seemingly fitter, more attractive and expansive than Aus.

If Zak Hardaker hadn’t been such a tool, Widdop could have played stand off and got this hands on the ball more. Saying that, had Thurston played it could have been 12-18 points instead of 6.

[*

As Great Britain coach?

I'm as gutted about the result as anyone, but our expectations of the squad need to be relative . Would any of our 17 get in the Aus squad, Jerry at a push maybe? Therefore credit to the team for their endeavour, but while ever our game is a third class sport in this country, and SL is as dire as the last 2 seasons, we'll always be rank underdogs who'll win 1-2 games out of 10 against the best and I'm sure that'll happen in the coming years through sheer weight of odds rather than depth of quality. All things being equal, Aus should be disappointed at not winning far more convincingly.



Had Aus come up with an uncharacteristic howler and England scraped a win it wouldn't have changed the fact that the infrastructure needs massive improvements for us to sustain a challenge at the very top (however nice the feeling would have been)

Graham and Burgess would.

Lack of vision by Jerry on that last play - kick inside and we score. That said, I think they'd blown for the huge forward pass by Widdop!