I should have known better of course, but my natural optimism laughably overcame reason and common sense.
Even now, I still maintain that England were more than capable of beating a relatively modest New Zealand side in Brisbane last Saturday morning.
What I didn't bargain for when I actually came out and tipped them though was that they would consistently produce the kind of errors that an under eights side on a 50-match losing streak would regard as being beneath them.
Tony Smith's side only completed half their sets of possession before the break, a statistic which, at that level, is frankly staggering.
And with St Helens winger Ade Gardner, supposedly the best we have in this country at the moment, doing a passable impersonation of his younger, less talented brother Mat on the flank, the Kiwis were always one step ahead of the boys in red and white.
I'm probably being harsh by singling out Gardner on a night when half his teammates were equally culpable, but there was something extremely depressing about seeing an England side produce a performance of such stunning ineptitude.
Something has gone very wrong to leave Smith's players so completely devoid of confidence that, with a few notable exceptions - Gleeson, Ellis, Peacock, Graham and Morley - they looked beaten the moment New Zealand opened up that early 6-0 advantage.
Coaches often talk about the proverbial 'bad day' at the office. England have had a bad month.
And someone at Red Hall ought to be convening an investigation to discover just how what was supposedly the best prepared international team ever to leave these shores ended up bumbling around to such an embarrassing extent.
I was talking to a former international the other day who recalled leaving on a tour that turned out to be far more successful than the one we have just witnessed with nothing more than two coaches, a doctor and a physiotherapist.
No conditioners, no bagmen, no shrinks.
And while I appreciate that times have changed, the experience of the last few weeks - coupled with the now infamous army of backroom staff that accompanied the British Lions rugby union side to New Zealand a couple of seasons ago - seems to suggest that there are occasions when less is actually more.

• A BIT of celebrity endorsement never did anyone any harm, so it was particularly gratifying to see Kangaroos coach Ricky Stuart's rant about the number of Australians currently clogging up Super League.

Stuart, a man who spent his playing career duelling with Andy Gregory, Shaun Edwards, Ellery Hanley and co, put the blame for England's lack of quality firmly at the door of Super League clubs looking for a quick fix by buying in overseas talent.
I have heard that argument somewhere before, of course, but somehow it seems to carry more weight when it comes from someone of Stuart's standing.
Richard Lewis, take note.