Wayne Bennett has accused his England side of beating themselves against Australia and pinpointed skipper Sam Burgess as a chief culprit.
The ruthless Kangaroos punished the error-prone hosts with 38-16 win at the London Stadium to end their Four Nations campaign in front of a crowd of over 35,000, leaving Bennett in a frustrated mood after the game.
NRL stars Gaeth Widdop and Josh Hodgson both failed to find touch with penalties in the first half and Burgess was penalised twice just before halftime by English referee Robert Hicks, much to the dismay of his coach.
"The problem is our inability to continually maintain pressure... not finding the sideline on two occasions, which is pretty important in any context let alone against the best team in the world," Bennett said.
"Then the stupid penalties we continually give away.
"Sam gives away far too many penalties - I'll be quite candid with you.
"He does that at South Sydney as well so he needs to change his behaviour."
Burgess said he agreed with Bennett's comments about his indiscipline but slammed Hicks' performance and accused him of being swayed by verbal pressure from Australia skipper Cameron Smith.
"They're a class outfit, but I think we're a better side than that scoreline," Burgess said.
"I agree with Wayne, I did give two penalties away at the end of the first half and one led to two points. It's something I have to improve on.
"Some of the calls were not good enough at all, you've got to put the whistle away at some point, and I'm not saying that is why we lost.
"But this is an international and there were 13 or 14 penalties in the first half.
"I don't know what agenda he's got there but at this level I don't think they were penalties.
"He was being made aware of the penalty count by an Australian player and made sure it was even by halftime."
Asked if it was Cameron Smith, Burgess responded: "Yeah, he's a smart player."
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