Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sat Nov 12, 2022 9:29 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 -done at this level - no pace anymore, easy for defenses to read now.
Willaims - our only good stuff came off him, tried so hard but let down by too many others
Welsby - poor, looked lost at times, big game nerves?
MM- no running threat, similar to Powell does not get defenses going backwards at all, too static
Radley was decent - way better than Knowles

Also
Thompson was poor when he came on thought Cooper was much better but we lacked go forwaard once Burgess/Hill combination was off.

The Watkins/Young combination was poor - Young showed a lot of inexperience.

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sat Nov 12, 2022 10:28 pm  

DannyT wrote:

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.

At this stage of the tournament you cannot afford to lose 1 of your forwards off the bench for a halfback. How can you not see that Sneyd on the bench is a bad idea?

He’s either good enough to start or isn’t.

Radley I thought was immense today apart from the intercept. His numbers will back it up.

Welsby has been poor this tournament but he is out of position but still would have expected more given his quality

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sat Nov 12, 2022 10:57 pm  

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I’m looking all over the internet and everyone is bagging the selections but there was hardly a murmur before the game. Throughout the comp I’d have liked the change up option Ackers could bring from the bench but I can see why Wane didn’t go that way.

As a team we simply saved our worst for our most important game and that’s so disappointing. A few had off days and saved comfortably their worst performance for today but I always like to treat the national side as a team and not bag certain individuals. We just didn’t play well enough. If only they had the game all over again, I’m sure we’d nail it but you don’t get a second chance in a World Cup.

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sat Nov 12, 2022 11:02 pm  

nathan_rugby wrote:

At this stage of the tournament you cannot afford to lose 1 of your forwards off the bench for a halfback. How can you not see that Sneyd on the bench is a bad idea?

He’s either good enough to start or isn’t.

Radley I thought was immense today apart from the intercept. His numbers will back it up.

Welsby has been poor this tournament but he is out of position but still would have expected more given his quality

I don’t have the stats to hand but what minutes did Thompson and McMeeken do? I would say both did very little on first view of the game and another bench spot could’ve been given to an Ackers or Sneyd as we had no variety at 9 either, plus Watkins has played in the pack all year. That’s more than enough variety but we were ultimately let down by a good number in any case.

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sat Nov 12, 2022 11:22 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.

Should never have played 6. Always looking for a pass rather than taking the line on. Mind you, apart from Lomax, who is now in his thirties, I don’t know where we are going to find a stand off who posses the quality to play at this level. Hopefully, one will appear before the next World Cup.

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sun Nov 13, 2022 12:03 am  

Well, there's Harry Smith. Do you see many other contenders in the halves? Although the result today wasn't really a comment on who had the best half-backs (although they did), it was about, which side played as a team.

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sun Nov 13, 2022 12:54 am  

moto748 wrote:

Well, there's Harry Smith. Do you see many other contenders in the halves? Although the result today wasn't really a comment on who had the best half-backs (although they did), it was about, which side played as a team.

He’s not at this level but hopefully he can elevate himself to international standard. A lot of the players who played today will not feature at the next World Cup and therefore Waney will have to look to the next generation.

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sun Nov 13, 2022 7:22 am  

moto748 wrote:

Well, there's Harry Smith. Do you see many other contenders in the halves? Although the result today wasn't really a comment on who had the best half-backs (although they did), it was about, which side played as a team.

Lewis Dodds.

Harry Smith is nowhere near international level yet.

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sun Nov 13, 2022 8:47 am  

nathan_rugby wrote:

Lewis Dodds.

Harry Smith is nowhere near international level yet.

Lewis Dodd.

Re: England 19-man squad for RLWC Semi Final : Sun Nov 13, 2022 8:58 am  

ploinerrhino wrote:

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

Well Welsby is a Wiganer so he can be blamed aswel as all the other connected England players.

We got beat by a better team,Wane didnt make the mistakes on the pitch,we got back in the game a few times to win but didnt .I think that sums it up.