Last Updated: Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:08
Coach Tony Smith blamed England's early mistakes for their 26-16 defeat to Australia in rugby league's Four Nations tournament.
Billy Slater's two tries and scores from skipper Darren Lockyer, Greg Inglis and Brett Morris helped the Kangaroos lead 26-0 at half-time at the DW Stadium in Wigan. And, despite a spirited second half fightback in which Sam Burgess, Gareth Ellis and Lee Smith all scored, England could not claw back the deficit.
Smith said: "We're disappointed, we left ourselves too much to do.
"Some of it was some very good play from Australia early on in the game but they exploited some areas in our team.
"If you just slightly show them the door they barge their way through it."
Smith, who revealed a strongly worded half-time team-talk helped inspire the players, added: "We had a talk. We didn't like the situation we were in and we didn't like the scoreboard.
"We had to pull together and do something about it. A couple of opportunities we created could have given us an even closer game towards the end. We had too much to do in too little time."
England will now have to defeat New Zealand at Huddersfield if they are to progress into the final of the competition.