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As England trudged off to the sounds of their own fans booing them at half-time on Saturday, it seemed as though their worst nightmare was being realised on a truly haunting Halloween for Tony Smith's team.

in which an all-too familiar sinking feeling had quickly taken hold among the majority of the 23,122 inside Wigan's DW Stadium.

The Great Britain suffered in the final of the 2004 Tri-Nations, the Kangaroos inflicted on England at last year's World Cup - few would have bet against another similarly distressing scoreline to expose the lie that Super League can produce players to compete with those of the NRL.

The Kangaroos had scored five unanswered tries in their Four Nations encounter and cut open the English defence with apparent ease in the opening half.

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Reading defender Alex Pearce found himself in the headlines before the start of the season .

and Pearce had enjoyed a very solid afternoon trying to snaffle the not inconsiderable threat posed by Terry's club team-mates Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka.

Pearce and Terry come from very different backgrounds. Terry went to and played for the club side that also counts the likes of Jermain Defoe, Sol Campbell and Ledley King among its former players.

Pearce attended the esteemed in Woodcote in Berkshire. Composers, politicians, soldiers and rugby players are among the famous Old Oratorians. Pearce played fly-half for the rugby team and showed early promise but always preferred the round ball.

There are undoubted comparisons to be made between Pearce and Terry beyond the fact that both wear the number 26.

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At The Stoop.

I wonder how England coach Tony Smith slept on Saturday night?

The naturalised Pom was at The Stoop to watch Australia and New Zealand s of such ferocious intensity and crunching defence that he could be forgiven for breaking out in the occasional cold sweat.

The previous evening he had in Doncaster after trailing 12-4 at the break.

If England's Four Nations opener had been a lullaby then Saturday's match was heavy metal.

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England's latest attempt to win an international rugby league tournament starts on Friday when they play France in the opening game of the .

It comes at the end of a decade that has witnessed near misses for Great Britain in the Ashes and Tri-Nations as well as two disappointing World Cup campaigns for England.

Last year's World Cup was arguably the worst of them all, with Tony Smith's team mustering only a scrappy win over Papua New Guinea and suffering losses against Australia and New Zealand (twice).

It raised the perennial question of whether Super League is robust and competitive enough to produce hardened international players.

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Preston North End is a football club with a big problem.

They may lie a healthy , have an excellent and highly-coveted manager in Alan Irvine and a well-drilled and committed squad.

But they came and crowds have slipped worryingly this campaign, with less than 12,000 turning up for .

It isn't easy for any side in Lancashire to build their fanbase. Preston aren't just competing with Blackpool, Blackburn, Burnley, Bolton and Wigan for supporters, they also exist in the considerable shadows cast by Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Everton.

is a very respectable all-seater stadium with a capacity in excess of 20,000 but the ocean of empty seats every home game is a major part of the reason why North End have to balance the books by selling their most bankable player just about every summer.

, , David Nugent, Ricardo Fuller, David Healy, Eddie Lewis, Jon Macken - make no mistake, North End are a selling club.

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If you stand outside Meadow Lane and look closely enough at the stands you can see the places where the old club badge used to hang. The new design has not replaced them yet.

Notts County are undoubtedly a club in flux at the moment. Their identity has changed but it is less clear who they now are.

The on Monday after 12 games of the League Two season is the latest illustration of a club going through a dramatic and headline-grabbing metamorphosis since their .

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At Old Trafford.

Leeds skipper Kevin Sinfield was a man in demand on Saturday night.

Signing autographs, giving interviews, collecting trophies - it took him a long time before he finally reached the Leeds Rhinos dressing room after their third successive Grand Final victory over St Helens.

Most of his team-mates had already changed (England captain Jamie Peacock was in the shower area apparently applying false tan), but Sinfield did not appear to be in a rush.

After exchanging some banter with a few of his team-mates, the 29-year-old took a moment to look at the he had won as the Man of the Match and then took his boots off. As he did so he lifted one up and kissed it.

Not only was it an unusually expressive gesture for a player who keeps a tight rein on his emotions, it was also extraordinarily symbolic.

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John Barnes and Tranmere Rovers always had the look of an unlikely union - .

The former England international after a spell as coach of the Jamaica national team and had no experience of League One football.

His only previous job as a manager in club football came at Scottish giants Celtic - and 3,469 days separated his last match in charge there and his first meaningful fixture at Prenton Park.

At Tranmere he inherited a club that had lost several key players from the previous season but which had a lack of available finance to replace them.

It was always asking a lot of Barnes and his assistant Jason McAteer - the Digger and Trigger show - to deliver on what following their high-profile arrival was always going to be unrealistic expectations.

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A sporting trilogy will be completed when take on in Saturday's Super League Grand Final.

You could argue that it speaks volumes about the lack of the depth in the competition and offers proof of Super League's predictability.

The Rugby Football League tried to shake things up with but the net result has proved the same - the top two teams at the end of the regular season will contest the final.

And although there is a large part of me that would like to see some different faces at Old Trafford on Saturday, I think it is wholly fitting that the best two sides will square up once again in the season's final domestic clash.

Yet as much as things have stayed the same, plenty has changed from the previous two finals.

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