TEN THINGS WE LEARNT FROM THE SECOND TEST

Luke Gale should play in the 3rd Test

1.

Luke Gale must replace George Williams at half back if England are to have any chance of winning the Third Test and the series. The English half back pairing lacked creativity on Saturday. Widdop will not get dropped so it will have to be Williams – he had a good debut in the First Test at Hull but struggled on Saturday. England Head Coach Steve McNamara should take a leaf out of his counterpart Stephen Kearney’s book and change his scrum half. I don’t understand why McNamara has picked two scrum halves in his squad and ignored both of them in the first two tests. England need to bring their outside backs into the game more and bring something different in attack – on Saturday they were too easy for Kiwi defence to read. Gale could be the difference.

2.
England also need to give more game time to Josh Hodgson. For me, England have looked better in both matches with Hodgson at dummy half – he is better with the ball in his hands out of dummy half and creates more opportunities than James Roby. The St. Helens hooker is an outstanding player and a tackling machine but Hodgson is the more creative player – he carved out England’s only try scoring opportunity on Saturday with the little kick through near the line that should have seen James Graham score, he scored England’s first try of the series in Hull and constantly put players in holes with clever, sharp passes out of dummy half.

3.

The Olympic Stadium should be used for the 2016 Four Nations opener. A double header should be staged between Australia and New Zealand with England playing Scotland. Wembley is too big with a 90,000 capacity and if we want to pay regular visits to London the Olympic Stadium is the perfect size with a capacity of approx. 54,000. Short sightedness or realism? You decide.

4.

My concern about taking big games to Wembley Stadium, apart from the Challenge Cup Final of course, is borne out by the fact that we could not sell out the Olympic Stadium for the Second Test. A crowd in excess of 44,000 is a respectably sized attendance but when you have a run of the mill Rugby Union World Cup Group game between Ireland and the minnows Romania played in front of a crowd more than twice that size at Wembley Stadium a few weeks ago you have to ask some serious questions about why we could not sell out the Olympic Stadium for a match involving England and the world ranked no. 1 rugby league team, New Zealand. Are the RFL marketing the games well enough? Tickets were available from £20 which is a decent enough price or do northern rugby league fans not want their international games played in the south?

SKD scores the only try.

5.

England need to stop the Kiwis off loading the ball. The only time the Kiwis looked dangerous on Saturday was when they off loaded the ball out of the tackle. Isaac Luke, Jesse Bromwich, Kevin Proctor and one or two others were constantly looking for the off load and managed to succeed despite the best attention of the English defence. It was one such off load out of the tackle by debut half back Kodi Nikarima that led to the only try of the game by Shaun Kenny-Dowall.

6.

Something needs to be done to fire the crowds up. The atmosphere for the first half of the First Test at the KC Stadium in Hull was poor before the second half improved due to England’s improved performance. Likewise, the atmosphere at the Olympic Stadium was subdued and tense just like the England performance. England need to come out with all guns blazing on Saturday at the DW Stadium in Wigan to make sure the crowd have something to cheer about early on and make sure that the atmosphere is intimidating and loud enough to affect the Kiwis performance.

7.

New Zealand at full strength would have this series won already. It is worrying that with the number of first choice players that the Kiwis have missing that we have not tied this series up 2-0. First choice half backs Shaun Johnson, the current Golden Boot holder, and Kieran Foran, world class winger Manu Vatuvei, captain Simon Mannering, prop forward Jarred Warea-Hargreaves, experienced utility Thomas Leuluaia, North Queensland Premiership winner Jason Taumalolo and the up and coming youngster Dallin Watene-Zelezniak are all players that would have been expected to be a part of the Kiwi’s first choice 17. Losing both world class half backs is bad enough but they also left Benji Marshall at home as coach Stephen Kearney did not want to select him. How do you think this series would be balanced now if all of the above players had been included?

Thomas Burgess

8.

Thomas Burgess has been a revelation in this series. He has always been in the shadow of elder brother Sam and his twin George but he has really stood up in this series so far and has been England’s biggest attacking threat and has also defended strongly. A triple Burgess brother threat in the 2016 Four Nations tournament is something to look forward to.

Ben Thaler - must referee Third Test.

9.

Ben Thaler must referee the third and deciding test on Saturday. I thought Aussie referee Gerard Sutton didn’t help the game flow at the weekend. There were too many penalties for minor infringements at the play the ball that really did not warrant a penalty and just needed a quick word from the referee to say ‘’get on with it’’. Thaler let the first test flow and it was a better spectacle as a result. A panel will this week decide if it is Thaler or Sutton who will referee the final test. With it being the decider I can only assume that they will go with the neutral Sutton but I think that decision would detract from the potential spectacle of an existing Test Series decider.

10.

The series will be decided at the DW Stadium in Wigan on Saturday. A sell-out crowd of over 25,000 will be in attendance to witness the series decider. It should be an exciting game but both teams will need to bring a more attacking style of play rather than concentrating on slowing the play the ball down and stifling the game. This match needs to entertain and needs to be as thrilling as we know rugby league can be to show the millions watching on BBC TV what a great game this is and how good international rugby league can be.