Jazz

(.. continued)

Burrow didn't actually play - Widdop was used off the bench. I thought it'd be a disaster but I think England's attacking structure received a bit of a boost when he came on late in the second half; Sinfield and Chase shared the dummy half duties. I'd probably be more inclined to just drop Chase, use Widdop in the halves for the entire game and put Burrow back on the bench but Widdop's year with Melbourne was really disappointing, especially when he came back early from injury in the finals, so I'm not sure it'd really be an improvement.

Tom Burgess and Mossop looked a bit out of their depth, so Graham returning from his in-house suspension or whatever it was and O'Loughlin getting fit so Sam Burgess can push up front would really help England maintain the intensity they started with I think. They really won the forward battle early on but were cruelled a bit by some indiscipline and silly errors from the bench players.

Cudjoe was sensational in defence; the best I've seen an England centre defend in a Test against Australia since Senior. Watkins seemed pretty lose technically but his decision making was good; both centres got heaps of traffic directed at them so for Australia to have only scored 28 points is a credit to the way they handled it.

(I have more to say but it's limiting me to 1000 characters so I'll make another post)

28-20 scoreline was probably a good indication of the game. England started really well but as the game wore on the class difference became more apparent. Australia had some lucky moments - for example, Smith and Thurston had thrown about 1000 forward passes in the first half which even the Australian supporters were joking about in the match thread, none of which were called, only for Tomkins to get an admittedly forward offload from Burgess and streak away only to be called back. Slater scored off the scrum win and that was half-time.

I tend to think England could've actually won if Graham, O'Loughlin and Brough were playing, but you always just sensed Australia could turn it on from anywhere while England really needed to work hard for their points.

Was a quality game anyway. After England lost to Italy in the trial there were a few people fearing a blow-out.

You signed in, yay! Good to see you haven't died in Africa

Haha yeah. If you wanted to make the post you did, you could've started a separate thread for live spoilers. Happens on a lot of Sundays. Nine-watchers just don't open the live thread.

When a match thread says "Ch 9" in the title, you can't post spoilers in it until they've been shown on Nine.

I was actually looking at a move to Hull at one point so I would've been a local and thought about investing in season tickets and all. That move isn't on the cards anymore but it certainly made sense for me to start following them. Rabble is definitely a good word to describe the club at the moment though; I believe Gentle even used it at some point last year.

When I was kid (lets say 5 years old) my grandmother went to England and brought me back a Wigan jersey, so before a few years ago if you asked me to nominate a team, I would've said Wigan, without having any real connection to them. I started really getting into Super League when I discovered it'd mean the ability to talk rugby league with my girlfriend though, and that's when I chose Hull FC. We've long broken up now but I'm stuck with them forever now; sport is funny like that.

Hull FC. Originally because my ex did but I'm stuck with them forever now. I actually tried to support KR for a couple of weeks at first just to wind her up but it wasn't happening.