Paul Gallen, Cameron Smith call out 'horrible' England defence as call for NRL star's debut grow louder

Paul Gallen and Cameron Smith have delivered a blunt assessment of England's performance in the first Ashes Test, describing them as "horrible" and labelling one defensive effort as "embarrassing".

England barely fired a shot at Wembley Stadium, not scoring until the 75th minute.

However, it wasn't the attack that came under the most scrutiny, with the side's flimsy defence copping plenty of heat - in particular Jack Welsby, who stayed on his line as Angus Crichton made a break 30 metres out and scored.

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Gallen believes the result exposes a wider issue in terms of the Super League standard.

"England are going to have to get a whole lot better," he said on Nine's coverage of the Pacific Championships on Sunday afternoon.

"I didn't think Australia were great ... it was a very scrappy game, but England were horrible. One thing about the English side, they are always physical, they are always tough, particularly in the middle of the field and I thought they really lacked that.

"I didn't think they were physical at all.

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"Their edge defence, forever and a day, even back when we played, was horrible and it was again last night. Angus Crichton carved up, the edges carved up ... I thought I really saw last night the difference between the Super League and NRL.

"I don't think they're gaining on us at all, I think we're getting further away from them.

"I think we'll win the series comfortably. I reckon we could pick two or three Australian sides and go over there and still beat the Poms. They really struggled last night."

One of the more notable errors in defence came right after half-time when hooker Jez Litten kicked from inside 40 and found the turf.

Reece Walsh was locked into the corner but ran sideways before finding a gaping hole in the defence and making a line break.

"That is embarrassing defence, that's off a kick chase, Reece Walsh in his Test debut, he needs to be getting lined up by a couple of front-rowers," Smith said.

England's poor performance was compounded by the Kangaroos' less than clinical efforts, completing at 69 per cent, three lower than their rival.

The visitors also had more errors with 14 and conceded more penalties and ruck infringements.

But the post-mortem belongs with England, with both Smith and Gallen claiming it's time AJ Brimson is called into the starting side, instead of 18th man.

"The fullback last night, they were making breaks, he's a metre out from the try line, all you've got to do is run into him and fall over and you'd score a try anyway," Gallen said.

"They were horrible."

Smith believes Brimson could also be a halves option.

"Fullback or halves, their halves weren't much better either, they didn't offer too much in attack, they came up with a few good opportunities but failed to capitalise," he said.

"It took them 75 minutes to score points against this Australian outfit, they were a little bit off their game, they were scrappy."