Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sat Nov 12, 2022 5:06 pm  

Not sure how you sell that final next week. Second home final in a row I’m going to watch a blow out score at.

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sat Nov 12, 2022 5:16 pm  

It was the fault of all Wigan players and all players attached to Wigan in some way.

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sat Nov 12, 2022 6:11 pm  

Egg Chasing wrote:

It was the fault of all Wigan players and all players attached to Wigan in some way.

Yes it was , I presume you have signed Welsby and Watkins as well

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sat Nov 12, 2022 6:46 pm  

ploinerrhino wrote:

Yes it was , I presume you have signed Welsby and Watkins as well

Reading some comments you'd think so mate. All down to Wane and his Wigan pals apparently.

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sat Nov 12, 2022 6:54 pm  

DannyT wrote:

Playing a semi final in a half empty stadium miles away from our base hasn’t helped. Dreadful atmosphere that was only just as bad as Welsby. What an absolute bottler he is on the biggest stage.

Were you at the game or sat on the couch/ in the pub? The atmosphere was good in a superb stadium.

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sat Nov 12, 2022 6:56 pm  

Tough one to take that. We didn’t show up until the last 20, and still managed to blow it.

Our sole focus moving forwards needs to be 2025 and the World Cup in France.

Players like, Tomkins, Whitehead, Watkins, Cooper, Hill, McIllorum, Hall and maybe a few others need to retire from international rugby.

We have a 3 year cycle to prepare for a tilt at it again.

For the rest of the week I am officially now a plastic Samoan.

I hope the final is an event worthy of what has been generally a cracking tournament in my opinion.

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sat Nov 12, 2022 7:27 pm  

Still not sure how we went from being extremely well drilled and all working together to looking like we'd only just started playing together.

There were so many points where we should have scored but blew it and gave away two very soft tries.

Even when we did the hard job of getting back into it we then c*cked up extra time with mistakes and handed the game to Samoa.

So frustrating as I thought we actually looked like a very good team and we let the occasion get to use. The first set we should have scored. Samoa lucky not to play with a man down all game, but strangely it went downhill once they lost a man for 10 mins.

I did wonder why Burgess only came back with 13mins to go.

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sat Nov 12, 2022 8:25 pm  

All I'd criticise Wane for is sticking with MM. Otherwise, as said, the way we went from looking well-drilled and organised to, that, was very disappointing.

And as I was sat at home on my settee, I'm not going to bitch about the crowd. But if it had been held at the DW or Headingley, we'd have probably won that game. Who else could we play at right centre? Wardle?

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sat Nov 12, 2022 8:36 pm  

Marks for our spine, then?

Tomkins - pretty poor by his standards, I thought. Kicking game not great.
Williams - patchy, but still the best of them, Most of our better efforts came through him.
Welsby - Who?
MM - poor.
Radley - Pretty good, but gave away that awful interception try.

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sat Nov 12, 2022 8:40 pm  

moto748 wrote:

Marks for our spine, then?

Tomkins - pretty poor by his standards, I thought. Kicking game not great.
Williams - patchy, but still the best of them, Most of our better efforts came through him.
Welsby - Who?
MM - poor.
Radley - Pretty good, but gave away that awful interception try.

Tomkins - should be his last game at fullback. Should play 6 or not at all. He had to take over the direction of the team in the last 15 after Williams went missing and Welsby was invisible.
Williams - as you say, patchy. Not good enough to lead a team.
Welsby - bottle job. Should never play 6 at international level again.
McIlorum - looked old and way off the pace. He’s a shadow of what he was in defence, never mind attack.
Radley - worst game he’s had, no real impact for me other than the interception.

I wanted Sneyd on the bench as an insurance policy as well.