We saved our worst for last says Sinfield after defeat at Elland Road

FRUSTRATED Kevin Sinfield accepts England saved their worst display of the Gillette Four Nations for the actual final itself.

The Leeds Rhinos stand-off was powerless to prevent Saturday’s 30-8 defeat against Australia after the hosts – confident beforehand – failed to truly make a mark on the contest.

Sinfield admitted they ventured away from the original game plan and were made to pay for too many errors.

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“I just felt we didn’t pass the ball enough and didn’t ask enough questions,” he said, after another opportunity to beat the Kangaroos went begging.

“We paid the price for that and are disappointed with the way the result blew out.

“We probably saved our worst performance for the final when we needed our best.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy – it’s not been done for 40 years – but what we produced wasn’t good enough and we need to be better.”

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Sinfield, who has tasted success just once in 13 meetings with Australia since debuting in the 2000 World Cup, knows they were in a promising position trailing by just two points at the break.

“We were pretty happy to go in 8-6 down,” he said. “We actually played poorly so knew if we improved in the second half we could cause them some problems.

“We then started pretty well in the second half but just didn’t pass it enough.

“Going one up the middle wasn’t the plan – we needed to try and get it two out more.

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“Also, both times we scored, we made a mistake in the next set.

“You just can’t do that at this level. You will get punished and we did.”

Sinfield, 31, added: “I’ve always been confident in the past we could do this and was tonight.

“We’d had a good build-up, being here in Leeds was obviously good and with Billy Slater missing there was certainly an opportunity for us, but we missed it.”

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Sinfield soon gets another crack against the Australians with Leeds set to confirm tomorrow they will play NRL champions Manly Sea Eagles in the World Club Challenge – with new sponsors Heinz Big Soup – at Headingley Carnegie on Friday, February 17.