Bolton Leyther

I can't deny the effort made but I think it's very cringey. Anyway, I'm hearing rumours a rugby match might take place at some stage in the evening. Can anyone confirm?

At one stage, I genuinely thought they were walking to Pennington Flash.

I notice Ellgren haven't tweeted at all about the new kit(s).

1. The quality of the contests in the knockout rounds. 2. The standard of rugby league in the Australia v. New Zealand semi final in particular. 3. The Samoan tournament journey, including these scenes among Samoan populations in Australia, New Zealand, Apia and elsewhere. Granted, none of the above is the doing of the organisers, but if we're judging the tournament on its sporting merit then the last fortnight or so has been very good.

This is a great shout.

That was absolutely brilliant. A great contest, great drama, great skills, great heart. Well done, England!

Yes!

Does anyone know if it's possible to purchase tickets by telephone or in person?

Why?

Perhaps not necessarily in itself, but if we want Australia to take international rugby league seriously other countries need to start beating them with some degree of regularity. Competition is good.

I'm normally quite sceptical of these kind of matches, however given the comptitiveness of the knockout stages and the impact the sem-finals in particular appear to have had, it could've been a good idea for this tournament in a "strike while the iron's hot" sense.

It's just a shame England were unable to rise to the ocassion.

I see Norfolk Island have been cruelly overlooked here.

By this I mean better for the sport over here.

The standard of the contests in the kockout stages has, by and large, been excellent. Better than I think most of us expected, and I know at least a couple of people who are normally arrogantly dismissive of the sport but had to reluctantly tip their hat to last night's performance. Clearly England winning a tight, competitive contest today would be better for the sport but ironically I think us narrowly losing one could be better for the sport in this country than the kind of rout the opening fixture was.

This is right. The priority and focus has to be on developing grass roots infrastructure. Provide those interested with the opportunity to play, coach, form clubs and leagues and then go from there.

Some people made that same claim in the lead up to today as well.

Makinson is the exception but I don't think it's a coincidence the rest have experience of playing in the NRL.

Fair enough.

How was he at fault for the second ne?

It actually finished 16-14 but it's unlikely the match would've played out as it did if the decision had been different.

It really was, wasn't it?

I'd be more confident in New Zealand if Manu was playing on the right to help counter the Australian left edge, but the indications are he's going to stay at full back.

I logged onto the ticketing website earlier and demand was so high there was a queue!