I have always felt McNamara was uninspring as a player and coach but felt he copped for a lot of blame for Dulls woes but IMHO I think the National team need better inspiration, fresh ideas and a proactive youth policy.

I am not sure who should replace him but I reckon McNamara being retained is a low ambition step.

Thoughts?

He has done a good job over his time with England, and the question is who else would want to do it. The team is progressing nicely, and we have potential to continue that upward trend.

He's just got England/GB as close to beating Australia and New Zealand on foreign soil in the same tournament as any coach for a good few years.

Dumping him now because we think the grass might be greener elsewhere is hardly sending out a positive message to any potential replacement.

The bit that nags me is that (forget winning a competition for a minute) but we didn't win a test last year against NZ/Aus. This year was the best chance to and we fell short and failed to win a test. We arent going to get a better opportunity on paper.

People talk about this team being one that will grow together. How you grow depends on what you feed it and currently McNamara is holding the spoon. My fear is this team adopting the 'tried hard but fell short' and I don't think McNamara has shown much else to prove he can get any further.

The reports that I'm reading suggest we've just had the worst SL in a long time, with Saints winning it because no-one else wanted it. The English players are poor and Sam burgess has moved on. In those circumstances he did a great job to get us close to both Oz and NZ.

I was dubious when he took over, but I actually think he's done a decent job.

Unless anyone can show that a significantly better coach really wants the job, he should stay and continue the progress we've made.

I've certainly seen England/GB teams that are stronger on paper perform worse on grass.

He's certainly brought the team together, for which he deserves credit. Haven't always agreed with his selections or tactics but I think he deserves to carry on if he still wants to. Can't be easy when the muppets above him show no interest in the international game, they're the ones that need replacing.

I'm not bothered either way. I think England are in a far better position on and off the field since he took over, but I'm not sure he can take us any further.

The product on the field has improved, but unfortunately results haven't.

IF someone is available with the right qualities to take England to the next level, then now would be a good time to bring in this hypothetical individual. But who is there England can afford? I'm not sure that any of Powell, Wane or McDermott have the right qualities to bring this change about, even if they are on paper better options than McNamara.

That said I do not think McNamara has ever shown at any stage of his coaching career that he is nothing more than an able assistant (and even that is debatable). His record in recruitment and player selection was terrible at Bradford, even in the years when money was allegedly available for players. Potter showed that the Bulls could still punch at the weight of a mid-table SL side in his second season, before the money finally disappeared for good. McNamara's best year was his first in 2007, the year of Tansey-gate, and things just got worse from there even though many good players were still on the books and in the academy system.

I'm also not sure if the new-look England side's new-found competence has anything to do with McNamara's input - arguably it has more to do with a fortuitous increase in half-decent backs (the likes of Tomkins, Hall and Charnley being a massive improvement on the likes of Wellens, Paul Sykes, Ade Gardner and Lee Smith), and an increasing number of top players playing in the NRL - especially the Burgii and Graham.

It feels like the situation Wigan found themselves in under Noble how England look at the minute under McNamara. He got us competitive again and up near the upper reaches of superleague bit he just couldn't get us in a final losing semi after semi along the way. A fresh approach with the same players by Michael Maguire took us that next step forward and got us playing in finals again.

England are in that same spot now, we need to move forward and I believe we need to go for a new coach whoever that may be (Wane, Powell, McDermott or even an overseas coach).

For my mine, he has done a decent job, with what he had available. We pushed the world champions very close and gave Australia a good game. I am not a big fan of knee jerk reactions. He has made good progress and deserves to be allowed to continue whilst ever we are moving forward.

I agree with a lot of the responses on this thread. I think he's done a better than decent job with what he's got. I like the way he seems to have changed the culture in the England set up, you get a definite feel that this is a team, not a bunch of players from rival clubs forced together. From the games he's been in charge it's been difficult to fault the effort and commitment from the guys on the pitch and I think he's had a lot to do with that. Tactically we could be better, but I do think he's limited by the lack of one really high quality half back - although you really need two as it's too easy to take on guy out of the game.

Should he go? I don't see any reason to change at the moment. If SL could pull a decent 7 out of it's @r$e then he might be able to start sneaking wins instead of narrow defeats. I would look to maybe bring some new ideas in from assistants etc. and maybe find a way of getting real belief in the team. I think a team gets that belief from knowing there are guys on the pitch who can do magical things when needed and the magic isn't happening at the moment so the belief is replaced by frustration.

carry on Mac

McNamara should carry on if he recognises the need to be bolder with both team selection and tactics. Not picking Hardaker and moving Tomkins to 7 was a missed chance IMO, as was not getting shot of Joel Tomkins after the first game and I would also have taken a punt on Joe Burgess after Charnley's showing in the first game.

He left himself with limited ability to make changes for the NZ game because the replacements would all have lacked match fitness, when if anything the Samoa game suggested a few changes were required for Australia.

Having said that, everyone talks as though if only he did X and Y England would have won. The reality is there weren't many gripes about the make-up of the squad, and had even Roby been available (let alone Sam Burgess) the narrow losses against Aus and NZ may well have reversed.

England just don't have quality from 1-17 available, even when everyone's fit. The backrow options available were poor, and the alternatives only marginally better (Westwood was a penalty waiting to happen in the World Cup, Ablett really isn't much better than what was available, Smith is a barely functioning halfback, who offers zero with the ball in hand etc etc).

Schoey's comments in the YEP are typical of the problem we have when assessing the coach - blames McNamara for lots of things, then rails about the problem being how poor SL is in comparison to the NRL. Given that any coach has to select well over half his squad from SL, it's frankly idiotic to hold him responsible for not beating Australia/NZ.

A lot of people were biased against McNamara when he took over. Personally I think overall he's done a good job - better than Tony Smith or Brian Noble IMO. Perhaps someone could take England further, but he at least deserves the series next year against NZ to show he can improve further.

I agree with what most people have said and I think he should stay until after the next World Cup.

We've tried chopping and changing players and blaming the coach, so let's try some stability instead.

In the last 10 years (50 games) England/GB have had 21 different halfback combinations. Only 9 of which played more than 1 game together.
I think we need to show more faith in both the players and the coach.