Rubbish sums it all up for England

Was he referring to umpire Billy Bowden's decision not to give New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori caught behind off James Anderson when another wicket would have kept alive England's hopes of winning the fifth and final one-dayer and squaring the series?

Or to the memory that Jesse Ryder escaped an lbw before he had scored to a ball by the same bowler that would have uprooted his middle peg?

Or even to the umpires bringing the players off one over after it was clear the match should be stopped for rain, allowing New Zealand 10 more runs that they might have had, before Duckworth/Lewis rendered the issue beyond doubt?

More likely, the thought had just sunk in that, in spite of a late rally to reduce New Zealand to 197-6 chasing 243, in the end his team had once again been out-thought, outplayed and outclassed.

Collingwood must have known in his heart that any attempt at putting a smiley face on the defeat that leaves England stuck in seventh place in the world rankings would be for public consumption only, certainly not the preposterous conclusion from coach Peter Moores that "including the Twenty20s, we've played seven internationals, won three, lost three and tied one, that's fact."

In the final analysis, England were walloped in Wellington and hammered in Hamilton. After finally raising their game in Auckland and Napier, they were comfortably clobbered in Christchurch. The final score was New Zealand 3, England 1. That's fact.

And whatever strides the captain and coach felt might have been made during the excellent wins over India and Sri Lanka, the top of the one-day ladder now looks a very long way out of reach of the current side.

"I keep on saying that we're very good at fighting back," said Collingwood. "It would be nice to get our noses in front a bit more often."

Yet, one or two of the old fall-backs were still trotted out. "Everybody is disappointed, but we've learned a lot about the side . . . blah blah . . . there are areas we need to look at, but also a lot of positives . . . blah blah . . . the way we've bounced back showed a lot of character and that bodes well."

Oh yeah? What might bode a little better is finding some ways of not only raising the performance level to a minimum of good, but also eliminating the basic errors of judgment and technique, and plain old-fashioned brainlessness that seem to scupper all attempts at consistency.

For example, why did England wait until they were five wickets down before the application of the long handle, in the shape of Luke Wright's 47 in 40 balls with four sixes and Dimitri Mascarenhas's 29 from 12 deliveries in a final score of 242-7 that was way short of par?

Why could Ryan Sidebottom, Anderson and Stuart Broad find no answers to the assault launched by Kiwi openers Brendon McCullum and Ryder — not a single yorker in the first 15 overs, for example?

New Zealand had the nous to pick two spinners to take the pace off the ball, and England selected not one.

England's fielding continues to look second rate — Ian Bell, Alastair Cook and Broad all failed to hang on to halfchances that define a side's quality.

"It wasn't for lack of effort," said Moores. "This was our cup final."

Good to know everyone was trying, then. England were not nearly as bad as some might interpret from Collingwood's unguarded utterance — just poor enough to make all the difference.