England were knocked out of the Four Nations tournament after a six-try defeat to Australia in Melbourne on Sunday. Though they did have some justification in feeling a couple of those should not have been with a knock-on in goal for one and a forward pass for another.
Australia took the lead on 6 minutes thanks to sloppy defence allowing Luke Lewis to touch down and Cameron smith add the extras. Then on 9 minutes England levelled the scores as Sam Burgess touched down. 6 minutes later England had a penalty and Ben Westwood converted 6-8. The lead was short lived as the Aussies went over on 18, 22, 29 and 32 minutes through Luke Lewis, Billy Slater, Brent Tate and Willie Tonga with Cameron Smith converting two of them to give us the half time score of 26-8.
The second period and England needed to score first and this they did on 43 minutes through Luke Robinson, Cudjoe adding the extras 26-14. That was as good as it got as the Aussies closed the game out through Lote Tuqiri on 46 minutes with Cameron smith adding the extras and then a controversial penalty on 59 minutes to give us the final score of:
Australia 34-14 England
Scorers
Australia: Tries: Lewis 2, Slater, Tate, Tonga, Tuqiri Goals: Smith (4) Pens: Smith
England : Tries: Burgess, Robinson Goals: Westwood, Cudjoe Pens: Westwood
Teams
Australia: B Slater (Melbourne); B Morris (St George Illawarra), B Tate (NZ Warriors), W Tonga (North Queensland), L Tuqiri (Wests Tigers); D Lockyer (Brisbane, capt), C Cronk (Melbourne); N Myles (Sydney Roosters), C Smith (Melbourne), P Civoniceva (Penrith), L Lewis (Penrith), S Thaiday (Brisbane), P Gallen (Cronulla).
Subs: D Shillington (Canberra), T Learoyd-Lars (Canberra), A Watmough (Manly), K Gidley (Newcastle).
England: S Tomkins (Wigan); D Goulding (Wigan), L Cudjoe (Huddersfield), R Atkins (Warrington), T Briscoe (Hull); S O’Loughlin (Wigan), L Robinson(Huddersfield); J Graham (St Helens, capt), J Roby (St Helens), S Burgess (South Sydney), G Ellis (Wests Tigers), J Tomkins (Wigan), B Westwood (Warrington).
Subs: S Lunt (Huddersfield), S Fielden (Wigan), E Crabtree (Huddersfield), B Harrison (Warrington).
Attendance: 18,000+
Referee: T Archer (Australia).