Four Nations Final Thoughts

Well it's happened again hasn't it?

England came up against an Australian side in determined mood and despite giving everything they had for a tad over an hour, the Aussies then flexed their muscles and showed their class to take the score from a highly competitive 22-16 in their favour to a 46-16 blow out.

Although the experts will point to the loss of centre Michael Shenton as the turning point, carried off with concussion after an almighty clash with Australian prop Ben Hannant and the floor, I think the rot set in earlier.

Right after scoring to take the lead for the third time through Sam Burgess (whose two tries will have done his growing reputation on the world stage no harm whatsoever), England's next two sets of possession were poor. In fact I'd go as far to say that in their own half England were pedestrian, predictable and never looked like making yards. The same can not be said when in the Australian half where in Kyle Eastmond and Sam Tomkins there was much unpredictability and it looked like the defence could be broken if these two players had the ball in their hands more often.

I felt that when Billy Slater barged over for a soft try from dummy half that the writing was on the wall and there were also some worrying tell tale signs in the first half despite England scoring first through a superb Burgess run.

Brett Morris had already seen a try chalked off by the video referee when he hurtled in at the corner. Scrum half Thurston matched Kevin Sinfield with the conversion.

Eastmond then put a kick to the corner and Peter Fox did very well to get above Jarryd Hayne to touch down but back came the Australians with a confidential try which started first of all with two mesmerisingly quick passes in midfield before the ball was chipped low to the corner and Greg Inglis, a modern day Mal Meninga if ever there was one, won the race but the video replays suggested the ball had just been lost.

To the amazement of the bulk of the 31,042 crowd the try was awarded, Thurston converted and added a penalty to make it 14-10 to Australia at the break.

Crucially for me, England looked laboured in those last ten minutes of the half with the Australians ominously making breaks while some tidy work at dummy half from Cameron Smith plus quality passing from Jonathan Thurston and the constant promptings of Darren Lockyer gave glimpse to their potential.

England tore into their opponents from the start of the second half and things were looking up as within seconds of taking his place on the field, Burgess hit a great line to go under the posts.

Sinfield converted with the Elland Road crowd teasing the Australians with taunts of "who are you?"

It would be fair to say we all knew who they were half an hour later.

As mentioned Slater started the momentum with a try from dummy half and he was quickly followed over the line by Cameron Smith following an astounding piece of play in the in-goal area by Slater, Morris scored a second, Slater claimed his second and third tries and Hayne got in at the corner.

Some people had suggested they'd not seen a lot of Lockyer, winning his 50th cap for Australia but that was foolhardy. He broke the line once in the first half and almost got through again, but in the second half, particularly the last 25 minutes, he was excellent. He made two further breaks with his kicking producing two tries and his passing helped set up another pair of scores.

Without doubt he will go down in Australian Rugby League legend as a champion player and if he does call time on his representative career, the international game will be all the poorer for it.

Thurston ended up with seven goals as England became tired and dispirited and the crowd, so vociferous in the first half, drifted away from the ground during the closing stages.

It all meant that once again a team from these shores had been handed it's backside on a plate by Australia. The pattern is familiar and sad and will drag into a 38th year. I have to say though, fourteen years of Super League rugby with better facilities and more science thn you can shake a theory of relativity at and we are still light years behind Australia!

Cue months of soul searching from the RFL and a conclusion to do things more the Australian way. That would be a bigger mistake in my eyes. I have said before we need to find our own way of playing the game. For me skills and decision making on the field has to take a precidence, plus let's bring the fun back, this is what crowds associate with. I certainly saw the visible lift when the exciting talent that is Kyle Eastmond ran at the Australians. He looked to be enjoying himself.

Off field, Franchising needs to go, it doesn't work and things stagnate.

We all too readily look at the Australian game, lets look somewhere else for inspiration, or shock horror, (dare I say it) come up with something entirely new!